A Lone Dragon
by MiraclesVeemon
Summary: Daisuke Motomiya has been the type of girl who walks alone in life, but what will happen when she is wrapped up in the adventures of a Digidestined and has all these kids attempting to be her friends? Can they break her walls down or will the Digital World suffer before they do?
1. Prologue

"Prologue"

Who says there is no such thing as monsters?

Whoever does is probably lying.

My name is Daisuke Motomiya and I'm 13 years old.

The first time I saw a monster I was very young and didn't even know it was a monster at all.

I just thought they were some freaks in costumes.

They were these creepy ghosts that barged into my apartment and grabbed me, my parents and older sister and they took us to this wreck center where there were a bunch of other kidnapped families being gathered up by the ghosts, who I now know are called Bakemon and Phantomon.

The kids were all lined up and brought up to this dude decked out in vampire clothes called Myotismon and he had a white cat looking creature in his hold.

Every kid that came up to them, he would ask; "Is this the 8th child?"

And the cat would shake her head no and it went on and on until it was my sister's turn and she was shot down from being this 8th child person.

Before Myotismon could ask the cat, who I know is Gatomon now, a bowling ball with wings flew in and said that he had found the 8th child, making the Gatomon gasp in horror while Myotismon was surprised and pleased.

Jun, my sister, grabbed me and pulled me away out of the room just as the Dracula wannabe put the others in a trance and they fell asleep.

We found our parents and ran to them, happy to be safe, then I pulled away to watch as Myotismon took off in a swarm of bas to wherever this unlucky 8th child was.

I watched the sky as lights exploded in different colors of the rainbow, a feeling of anticipation rising in me as I watched and wanted to go out to see what was happening.

I was really worried when I saw my friends' Kari and Tai's parents were also in the center with us but my friends were nowhere to be seen.

After the light show was done it was night time and we were safe to leave, but then there were these weird images of islands in the night sky, then a large beam of rainbow lights lifted these kids up into the sky.

Before I could see what else happened, my parents pulled me away and we went back home, my mother tucking me in and telling Jun and I to just forget about what happened because it was just some hoax for a company and it didn't matter.

A part of me didn't believe her, but I was young and naïve then.

Heck, I'm naïve even now, but not as much.

Anyway, after that day, I met up with my friends Tai and Kari, but was shocked when they acted differently around me.

They tried to hide it, but they had changed and it scared me because they didn't seem to have any time for me anymore and that hurt.

Kari and I used to be like sisters, but now she didn't have any time for me, spending more time with all of the other girls at school, leaving me all on my own.

I had never been good at making friends before and only ever let my wall down around the Kamiyas, but now that they pushed me aside, I don't think I can ever let anyone back in ever again.

At least, that's what I had once thought.

One thing made me change my mind and my life entirely.

Digimon.

To be continued…


	2. Enter Flamedramon

"Enter Flamedramon"

**Yeah, I have no idea what the pairing is gonna be for this story. You guys decide just like last time. Please enjoy and review.**

So four years had gone by as my friends and I pulled away from each other and I had been alone for most of it.

I tried out for the soccer team to try and fill up my time and it worked.

Oh, and get this.

Tai actually showed up to my games to watch and cheered me on as I played, but I really didn't care about it.

He and Kari abandoned me and acted like it was nothing, so why should I even give them another chance and set myself up to get hurt all over again?

It was the first day of seventh grade and some guys from my soccer team pulled me away to play with them, so I did since Kari was close by and I wanted to avoid her for as long as I could.

"Motomiya, this way!" Takeshi called as I had the ball and I kicked it over to him just as Kai rammed into me, trying to get the ball.

I stumbled and fell to the ground, but at least Takeshi got the goal.

I flew my bangs out of my face as a hand was held out in front of me.

Curious, I looked up to see a guy with blonde hair and azure eyes smiling down at me.

"Here, let me give you a hand." He said.

I stared at it or a second before I stood up myself, brushing the dirt off of my knees.

"Hey, Motomiya, let's go!" Rei called to me waving me over.

I looked back, then nodded and ran over, leaving the blonde guy alone to get to class.

Rude, I know, but I don't want to make friends and then get left in the dust again.

(Later…)

I sat down in my seat in class, resting my head on my desk as I waited for class to start.

I saw a flash of pink and white in the corner of my eye and saw that Kari Kamiya took the seat beside me.

"Hey Daisuke. Looks like we're in the same class again this year." She said with a sweet smile.

Yippy freaking doo.

Not like you actually care, you haven't for a while now.

Thankfully, the teacher came in, sadly it was the one we had last year.

"I'm Mr. Hamasaki, I'll be your teacher. And I'd like you all to welcome a new student." he said.

I looked up as the blonde kid I had seen before walked into the room, Kari gasping at the sight of him, smiling happily.

Must be a friend of hers.

"It's nice to meet you. I'm TK." he said bowing his head.

"Please take the seat behind the girl with the camera around her neck." Mr. Hamasaki said.

TJ walked over and sat behind Kari, the two smiling at each other.

"Together again." TJ said to her.

"Just like old times." Kari said back.

Oh, gag me.

"Our teacher kind of looks like Ogremon." Blondie joked making her laugh.

(Later…)

School was finally done for the day and I was looking forward to going home and watching TV before Jun got home and hogged it to herself watching some documentary on a boy band.

"Daisuke!" someone called making me stop as I was almost out the door.

Oh, what?

I turned and saw Kari was coming over with TJ, both smiling at me.

"Daisuke, I'd like you to meet TK Takaishi. TK, this is Daisuke Motomiya." She said.

"It's nice to meet you." He said.

"Yeah, hey." I said with a small crooked grin.

I really didn't care much for meeting him, but it didn't hurt to at least try to be nice when meeting a new kid, even if I am getting this feeling that we weren't gonna get along too well.

"Hey!" a girl called.

I knew her as Yolei Inoue, my sister's best friend's little sister.

"Oh, hi Yolei." TJ greeted her as she came over with a note.

"You're Kari Kamiya, aren't you?" Yolei asked.

"Yeah, that's right. Why do you ask?" Kari asked.

"Well, are you related to Tai? Cause he sent this e-mail." Yolei said holding up a note that said 'Come to the Digital World. The digimon need our help.'

"My brother needs us." Kari said as she ran off, grabbing my hand before she did.

Whoa, when did I say I wanted to go?

TJ and Yolei followed behind us as we ran to where the computer room was, but stopped when this red haired high school student appeared.

"Izzy!" Yolei said.

"Hey, Yolei. I'm glad I found you. I need to use the computer room right away." Izzy said.

"Ah! You mean the legendary former computer club president is actually looking for me? I'm honored." She gushed.

Wow, that is really weird.

"What's up Izzy?" TJ asked with a smile.

"Tai sent us an urgent e-mail." Kari said showing him the note as Yolei looked at her confused.

"Yeah, I know. I got one too." Izzy said.

Yolei then unlocked the computer room as we all walked into the room; me trying to figure out why I was even going with them when I could've just ran the other way.

They wouldn't notice if I disappeared, probably wouldn't even care.

Izzy sat at one computer and started typing on it, searching for something.

"I was just about to send Tai an answer when the battery ran out on my computer. I knew I should have recharged it after I played trigonometry trivia on the internet last night. But boy, talk about fun. I got him!" The red head said.

"What's the Digital World? Is that a new amusement park? I bet they have some great rides." Yolei said.

For someone so smart, she can be a real ditz at times.

"I think I heard Tai talk about once, but I wasn't really listening. I thought it was some video game." I said, not expecting anyone to listen, until blondie looked over at me in surprise.

"You know Tai?" he asked.

Yeah, 'cause I know Kari and not her brother.

Wow, she never really talked about me to her friends at all did she?

Why am I not surprised?

"They play on the same soccer team." Kari said.

"Hey guys, I've got an idea, let's all go to the Digital World." Yolei said as a little boy walked.

"Yolei, weren't you coming over? Remember, you were gonna fix my computer." The boy said making the lavender haired girl pout.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot." She said as she walked out with him.

"If Tai's there…the gate to the Digital World is open." Izzy said as he looked at the screen.

Call me crazy, but I have a feeling something bad is going to happen.

"We're going back to the Digital World. Prodigious!" Izzy cried as he, Kari and TJ pulled out these strange devices.

Am I really invisible here?

I sighed and turned to leave, but stopped when the computer glowed and three lights shot out, a yellow one and red one flying out of the room and one zooming right towards me.

I held up my hands, catching the light as it felt warm and comforting as it rested in my hands, the light fading away as I opened my hand to admire the new white and blue device in my hands.

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's a digivice!" TJ cried as he and Izzy looked at me in surprise and Kari looked at her own digivice.

"It's a different model than the ones we have." She said as the red head looked at the computer.

"Huh. We better go now while the gate to the Digital World is still open." He said as I looked over my digivice.

"How long will it stay open for?" TJ asked.

"Hmm." Izzy said.

"I don't care. I'm going to help my brother." Kari said.

"So does anybody wanna explain this to me? 'Cause if not, then I'll just leave." I said turning to the door, but was stopped by TJ grabbing my arm.

"You can't leave. You have a digivice, that means you have to come with us." He said.

I stared down at his hand, then back up into his eyes.

"If the Digital World sent you a digivice, it means something and you should take it seriously." Izzy said as I shook blondie's hand off my arm.

"I'm not waiting any longer." Kari said with a determined look as she held his digivice up to the screen.

After a few seconds, she was surrounded in light and pulled in and I felt worry for her, before scolding myself.

Even when I'm trying not to care for her, she makes me anyway.

"I'm with you." TJ said as he held up his digivice and was pulled in with her.

"It's your turn…unless you're scared." Izzy said looking at me while I sent a small glare at him.

"I'm not." I said holding up my digivice and was pulled in.

OK, maybe I'm a little freaked out that I'm being downloaded into a computer and sent to a different world.

Who wouldn't be?

There were lights flashing all around me as my body felt lighter and stronger, music even playing in the background before finally it all stopped and we ended up in the middle of a forest, coming out of a TV.

"Whoa. This place is amazing." I said looking around, then gasped as I noticed that my purple tank top with the yellow heart, brown shorts and blue shoes had been replaced with a blue tank top with orange and red flames at the edges, tan shorts that were a bit shorter and clung to my legs in a comfortable way and orange shoes and I had on black gloves.

"What in the? This world comes with a whole new wardrobe." I said making TK and Kari look at me.

"It's over this way." Kari said when she got a signal on her digivice, leading us to where it was.

I stopped and looked around the area, getting this creepy feeling that we were being watched.

I looked over to where a vending machine was and frowned in thought at it.

"Hey, guys, why is there a vending machine here?" I called, but they weren't paying attention.

Suddenly, these weird green sludge creatures with googly eyes came out of the vending machine, knocking me down.

"Rude much." I grunted while TJ and Kari laughed making me pout at them as I stood up.

"Oh, no. I don't need a hand up. Don't be silly. Thanks for asking though." I said sarcastically as I walked right pass them, making them run after me.

"Those were digimon. But there are a lot more cuter ones than those." Kari said.

"And a lot scarier ones too." TJ chuckled.

"TK!" a cute orange hamster with bat wings for ears cried as he flew over to the blonde, making him laugh and hug him.

"Patamon. Boy am I glad to see you." TJ said.

"Hi guys." Tai said as he ran around the thick line of trees with an orange lizard and white cat that made my eyes widen in shock at how familiar she looked.

"I'm glad you all made it." Tai said smiling to his sister and her friend, but then gasped when he saw me.

"Uh! Daisuke, what're you doing here?" he asked as if I wasn't supposed to be here and it hurt.

I knew I should have ignored Red and Blondie and ditched them.

"Kari." The white cat cried as she jumped into the pink girl's arms.

"Gatomon! Oh. You're tail ring. Tell me what happened." Kari said.

Gatomon then told us about how a Unimon attacked her and she lost her tail ring, which gives her most of her power, during the scuffle.

Tai brought us all into the cave they were in before as we talked.

"One day this bossy human appeared and began making digimon into slaves. He said 'I am the Digimon Emperor'. I heard we're all gonna have to punch a time clock too." Gatomon said as I looked over to a weird looking egg that was red with orange flames on it, a sun symbol and a blade in it.

For some reason, I felt like it was calling out to me to go over and hold it, but didn't know why.

"Another human? You mean that someone else comes here besides us? Well, there goes the neighborhood." TJ sighed.

"Yeah and he's got this strange new dark digivice that makes us unable to digivolve." Gatomon said.

"Show her yours." TJ said turning to me and so did Kari and Tai.

I shrugged and pulled my digivice out of my pocket, making the cat tense up when she saw it.

"That's it! you work for the Digimon Emperor." Gatomon accused.

Nice to see how my so called friends didn't try to help me out here.

"Are you blind? You said he had a dark digivice. Is this dark? I don't think so." I said crossing my arms and giving the glaring cat a glare of my own as TJ gave me a curious look.

"Besides, I just got this when it came outta the computer." I said making Tai look at me in shock.

"The dark digivice is draining our power and making us all weak as newborn kittens." Gatomon said shaking in anger.

"That't why you couldn't digivolve." Tai said frowning at Agumon.

"Yeah, if I could digivolve, then he wouldn't stand a chance." Agumon pouted with his arms crossed.

"The Digimon Emperor uses these powerful dark rings to control the digimon." Gatomon said.

"Yeah, that's right and when the ring catches you, you're a slave for life." Patamon said.

"These collars do everything but get rid of fleas." Gatomon muttered.

"Digimon Emperor. I'm gonna slap a dark ring on him." Kari frowned.

Bad feeling returning.

"Looks like a deflated beach ball. No wonder, it's got a spike through it." TJ said as he looked at the egg.

"Yeah, plus it's heavier than my mom's meatloaf." Tai said as Blondie walked up and tried to pick the egg up, but just grunted and huffed as it didn't come out.

"It won't budge." He said stepping down as Kari walked up.

"Move aside, this is a woman's job." She said pulling on it, but it was stuck.

"Too bad we don't have a woman here to help." TJ said making me glare at him.

He tensed up and slowly turned to me and laughed nervously as I mentally set him on fire with my eyes.

Tai snorted at that while I huffed and walked up to the egg, happy to prove him wrong.

I bent down and wrapped my hands around the egg, feeling the warmth coming from it as this force begged me to lift it.

I breathed out as I just stood up with the egg coming out of the hole with a pop.

Everyone gasped as I held it in my hands, looking it over.

"You were saying?" I asked.

"There's a problem." Tai said as orange sparkles and light slowly floated up from the hole a foot away from me.

I watched as a shadow formed and it soon became a blue creature that was curled up sleeping.

He opened up his eyes and looked into mine and I felt this feeling go through me…like we were connected somehow.

He smiled and jumped out of the light as it faded away and hopped around me.

"YAHOO! Free at last! Free at last! You moved the digi egg." He cheered happily making me smile and laugh at him.

He stopped in front of me holding out his hand and I crouched down in front of him.

"My name's Veemon, but you can just call me Veemon." he greeted.

"I'm Daisuke, but you can call me Dai." I said resisting the urge to hug him.

He was just so CUTE!

"I've heard of Veemon. Supposedly, he's a fun loving, adventure seeking little digimon that brings you good luck. But I thought he was just a legend." Agumon said.

A lucky dragon, huh?

How cool.

"Nope, I'm real all right and I've been waiting a very long time to meet cha, Dai." Veemon said jumping into my arms, making me laugh and hug him back.

I can't help but let my walls down for him a bit, but only for him.

If anyone else tries, the walls are coming back and will be crafted out of some heavy duty material.

"Oh, really, huh?" I asked standing up with him in my arms.

"Yep, you're the one all right 'cause you were the only one to move the digi egg of Courage." He said proudly.

There was a quake that shocked all of us, making us look around.

"Look up there!" TJ cried pointing upwards and we saw this triceratops was trying to get into the cave from the hole in the roof of the cave.

"Monochromon. His shell is harder than diamonds and his attack Volcanic Strike sends out millions of fireballs." Blondie said as Monochromon fell through the hole.

Patamon used this attack called Boom Bubble and Agumon used Pepper Breath on the dino, but it didn't even faze him.

"Come on, let's go!" TJ yelled as Monochromon started up his attack and we all ran out of the cave to escape the hot flames chasing after us.

"Dai, hurry up and open the digi egg." Veemon said as he hopped out of my arms, running alongside me.

"What would that do?" I asked as we ran.

Monochromon roared as he was a few feet away from us, making us to push ourselves harder to get away and were soon out of the cave, but the others were already down off of the ledge.

"That was close." I panted as we stopped at the edge.

"Daisuke, get down here!" Tai called up at us as flames shot out of the cave, Veemon pushing me down off of the ledge so we wouldn't get ran over and caught me in his arms, then Veemon fell into my arms, sending us back down on the ground.

"Nice catch." Veemon said to the groaning 16 years old under us.

I got up off of him, letting him get up and rub at his back.

"Dai, you control the digi egg of Courage. You've got to use your courage to open it up." Veemon said as I set him back down.

"I can digivolve if you open the egg, but you have to have the Courage to do it." he said.

"It's worth a try." Tai said as he stood up straight as TJ, Patamon and Agumon ran over, but Kari was still sitting on the ground with Gatomon.

"Tai!" Agumon cried.

"We've got to get out of here." TJ said.

"We're sitting ducks here." The goggle wearing teen said as Monochromon jumped over us.

We all gasoed as we looked to see that he was heading straight for Kari and Gatomon!

"Dai!" Veemon cried.

"Have courage!" Tai said.

I looked over at Kari, seeing fear in her eyes and felt this burning feeling of protection and worry in my chest and gripped the egg.

"Fine. You want courage, I'll show you courage." I said holding the egg up in the air as I felt heat surging from it.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I yelled as orange lights burst from it, my digivice beeping and glowing as Veemon was covered in flames and light.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

We all stared at the new dragon as he charged ta Monochromon, knocking him off his feet before he could get any closer to Kari and Gatomon.

"Armour digivolve?" Tai asked.

"Whoa, what happened to him?" I asked as everyone just kept blinking with their jaws wide open.

"I am Flamedramon. As Veemon I used the digi egg of Courage to armour digivolve. My Fire Rocket attack will char broil the enemy like a well done steak." Flamedramon said.

Monochromon got back up and charged at Flamedramon, but he just stood in his place, waiting for it to come and held out his clawed hands, stopping him in his tracks and then threw him over his head.

Monchromon snarled as he got back up and Flamedramon charged at him, the dino using his Volcanic Strike, my dragon batting the flames away like they were flies.

Monochromon got annoyed and ran at him, using his horn to throw Flamedramon up in the air.

"Flamedramon!" I cried out in worry as everyone else did the same.

He stopped flipping and just hovered in the air as his body erupted in flames in a move called Fire Rocket, going straight for the dino.

"Barbeque that dark ring, Flamedramon!" Gatomon yelled.

He hit the dark ring, then flipped over to land on his feet away from him as the ring cracked and shattered.

Flamedramon glowed orange as he turned back to Veemon, the light shooting over to me and it turned into a new hand held computer.

"What's this?" I asked opening it up to show the digi egg on the screen.

"That's a good Monochromon." Kari cooed as she petted the dino as he lay there exhausted.

After he was rested up, the dino got up and walked off from us.

"Good bye Monocromon. Don't forget to write." Kari called ash she waved him off.

"I can't believe the Digimon Emperor can turn such a nice digimon into such a nasty creature." TJ said frowning as Veemon hopped over to me, holding out his hand with a smile.

I returned it and took his hand.

"Nice workin' with ya, Dai. Let's do it again sometime." He said.

"Great." I chuckled.

"Hey, guys. That armour digivolving is pretty cool." Tai said as he came up beside me with his lizard.

"Even though the rest of us can't digivove, I know that you new guys will be able to defeat the Digimon Emperor no problem." Agumon nodded.

"Yeah, leave it to me." Veemon said making me smirk at him.

"Daisuke, I think you were really brave back there in that battle." Tai said making me look back at him, my face becoming neutral gain.

How is it Veemon can easily make me express my emotions?

"As we all know, the leader of the Digidestineds just wouldn't look right without goggles." Tai smiled as he took his off, making my eyes widen in shock at what he was saying and doing.

"So here. I want you to have mine." He said taking my hand and placing them in it.

I just stared at them, unsure of what to do or say.

"Dai?" Veemon asked.

"Tai…I don't think I can do this." I said looking up at him.

He smiled and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"I've known you since you were a baby. You're perfect for this job." He said.

He's lost his mind if he can't remember the four years of neglect.

I really don't think I can do this or that I'm right for the job, but…

I sighed and placed the goggles on my head, feeling kinda awkward at having them as Kari and TK gathered round me, looking at them.

"They look real cute." The pink clad girl smiled at me.

I looked at her and shrugged, but my cheeks were still tinged pink.

She knew I hated it when people said that stuff about me.

"Good, the sun's going down. Now we can relax." Patamon said as we watched the orange sun set behind the mountains, the sky turning pink and purple.

"Why's that?" TJ asked.

"The Digimon Emperor never appears at night." Gatomon said.

"Excuse me, Tai, but it is getting late. Don't you guys need to go home soon?" Agumon asked.

Oh, I am so dead if I miss curfew.

"We sure do, but I'm not even sure if we can get home." Tai said.

He looked very different without the goggles on.

"Be careful. Never stay too long." Tai said looking at me.

We all started walking when we heard voices and found a TV with the computer room shown on the screen with Yolei, Cody and Izzy on it.

"_All right, Izzy, Cody's back. Now can we go to the Digital World now?"_ Yolei asked eagerly.

"_The gate might be closed. It's not safe."_ He said.

"_At least I got the brownies."_ Cody said holding out the container.

"_Mm. This is the best thing I've ever tasted."_ Izzy said as they all started munching on the brownies.

"_Hey, what does it mean when the light on that thing goes on?"_ Yolei asked.

"_What thing?"_ Izzy asked.

"_That thing on the computer. I just saw the light go on."_ Yolei said looking at us and freaked.

"So now what?" I asked.

Blue lights surrounded us and all of us humans were pulled through the gate we heard about.

We all yelled s we fell out on the trio sitting in front of the computer, Kari landing on Yolei, me on Izzy, TK on Cody and Tai on top on me.

"Het off, you're crushing my brownies!" Izzy yelped.

I really hope this doesn't happen to us all the time, or else I'm gonna wind up as a paraplegic.

TBC


	3. The New Digiteam Complete

"The New Digi Team Complete"

**Here is the next chapter. So, I have a vote for Yamasuke so far. Keep voting please. I hope you guys like it. Please enjoy.**

OK, so I met this new guy TJ or TK or whatever his name is and found out he knew Kari and Tai because they're all Digidestineds and so am I.

My partner Veemon is a super cool dragon that seems to be breaking down my walls and now we're all in the computer room in a dog pile.

"Where are we?" asked Tai.

"This is the computer room." TK answered.

"When you guys came out of the computer, where did you come from?" Cody asked as we all stood up, me noticing that my clothes were back to normal.

"The Digital World. I wouldn't recommend going there unless you like getting chased my fire breathing monsters." I said brushing my bangs out of my face, just as Yolei got in my face, making me jump back.

Dude, personal space.

"Let's go back!" Yolei said.

"I think we've had enough excitement for one day." Cody said.

"Don't you wanna go to the Digital World, Cody?" Yolei asked.

"Of course seeing all those monsters and stuff would be fun, but tonight's macaroni and cheese night at my house and I don't wanna miss out." Cody said.

"That's right, its pork surprise at my place." Tai said miserable.

"And stuffed green peppers in a salad." Izzy said.

"TV dinners in the microwave." TK said.

"No fair! I wanna go!" Yolei whined, tears in her eyes freaking me out.

"Don't worry, Yolei. You'll get a chance." TK said as we all walked out of the room to go home.

"When?!" she whined.

I rolled my eyes as I separated from the group and walked home, even though I lived in the building across from the Kamiyas.

I just wanted to be way from them so that I could figure out what to do now.

I got home soon and was met with my sister just coming out of the shower.

"Hey. Mom and Dad won't be back until later. Can you cook?" she asked.

That wasn't a question; she knew I would cook since she never did when our parents were out.

"Yeah, I got it." I sighed going into the kitchen.

Not like I wanted to shower or anything when I got home.

I washed my hands as Jun got a bottle of milk to drink, then I got out the rice and beef cubes that were in the fridge, then started cooking.

"Why are you so late?" she asked.

"I was at the computer club with Kari, Yolei and this new kid at our school." I said as he fried the meat.

"Kari, huh? I thought you weren't hanging out with her anymore. Plus, you have Tai's goggles." She pointed out.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Jun, I don't bug you about your life, so don't but into mine." I said.

She shrugged and walked off to her room.

"Call me when supper's done." She said walking off.

As soon as she was gone, I tore the goggles off my head and set them down, still feeling weird about this entire thing.

What is going on and why was I chosen to be a Digidestined?

Who the heck came up with this idea?

Whoever they are must be sick in the head.

(The next day…)

After school was done I tried to avoid the others and escape to my home, but was stopped by Sora, Tai, Kari and TK when they showed up.

We walked to the computer room, me not feeling up to it, but had to.

I pulled the door open and saw that Izzy, Yolei and Cody were all in the room waiting on us.

"How's it going, guys?" I said with a wave as we walked in.

"Hi everybody!" Sora said cheerfully.

We three newbies held out our digivices to show her, mine blue, Yolei's red and Cody's yellow.

"Those are the new digivices? How cool." Sora said.

"That's right. Those were released from the digi egg when I touched it." Tai said.

"Well, what are we standing around here for? I say let's get going!" Yolei cheered.

"Hold it! I think I should tell you something before we go." I said.

Come on, they needed to know about the monsters, the Emperor, dark rings and other stuff that I had already seen.

"Give me a break. You've only been there once. What do you know?" Yolei said smugly.

Oh, the nerves of this chick.

No wonder we never became friends when our sisters introduced us.

"I think we should be prepared for a little danger." Cody said as Izzy checked all of the computers.

"My suspicions were confirmed when I just checked the other computers. None of them seem to be effected by this. The gate is only open on this one here." He said showing us the computer that started it all yesterday.

"That's not all. The gate has never been opened two days in a row before." Izzy said as typed on the keys.

"Then I say we get going." I said making everyone smile and nod.

Oh my god, they actually listened to me.

Well, of course they did.

This is something everyone but me wants to do, it's no surprise there.

But I do wanna see Veemon again.

I couldn't stop thinking about him last night.

"Tai Kamiya, is that you?" a familiar voice called making the former goggle head freak as we all turned to see the teacher.

"We haven't seen you in a while." Mr. Fujiyama said as he walked in with a smile.

"Mr. Fujiyama." Tai yelped.

"And Sora and Izzy are both here as well. Didn't you all graduate?" Fujiyama asked.

"Yeah, we did and what're you doing here?" Tai asked.

"I'm the new head of the computer club." He said shocking the high schoolers.

"Huh? But what do you know about using computers?" Sora and Tai asked.

I swear, if hose don't get married someday, the universe is sick.

"Not a single thing." The teacher chuckled making them hang their heads.

"I just remembered. There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, Mr. Fujiyama. You got a minute?" Tai asked as he pushed the man out of the room.

"Well, sure, what is it?" Fujiyama asked.

"Um, well, I've been having problems adjusting to high school. It's the girls. They're so much older." Tai said nervously as he sent us a victory sign before the two disappeared around the corner.

"Thanks Tai, we owe ya." Sora said.

"All right, let's get going." Izzy said as we all held up our digivices and were pulled into the computer, my outfit changing and so did Cody and Yolei's.

"Is everyone OK?" Izzy asked as we landed in the middle of a grass land.

"Wow, so this is the Digital World? Hey, wait. I'm wearing different clothes and they're pretty comfortable too." Cody said.

"Hey, I'm dressed like I'm part of the cool crowd." Yolei said checking herself out.

"I tried to tell ya. This place comes with new clothes." I said with my hands on my hips.

"I love this helmet it makes my glasses look smaller." She said.

"I would prefer my regular clothes, I don't get why we had to change." I said.

"Wait till I tell my sisters I got free clothes." Yolei gushed.

"Kids today have no sense of value. When I was a kid, I showed a lot more respect whenever I received a gift." SOra said making Kari giggle.

"Sora, I hate to say this, but you're sounding just like my mom." She said.

We all started moving, looking for the digimon.

"Veemon? Veemon!" I called s we walked.

"Biyomon!" Sora called.

"Tentomon!" Izzy called.

"Veemon, where are you?" I called cupping my hands around my mouth.

"Dai!" I heard him call and smiled as I saw his blue head poke up and he was waving to me.

"Dai, I'm over here." He cried as he ran up to me and I bent down, clasping hugging him.

"Veemon." I sighed happily.

"Dai. I brought Patamon and his friends with me." He said pulling back as we saw Patamon, Gatomon, a pink bird and a red bug flying over to our group.

"Tentomon!" Izzy cried.

"Biyomon!" Sora smiled.

"Tentomon." Red said hugging his partner.

"Izzy, you're a sight for big green, sore eyes." The bug said as the pink bird and her partner ran to each other, hugging tightly.

"Biyomon." Sora sighed.

"I've missed you, Sora." Biyomon said.

"I've missed you too." The orange haired girl said.

All of a sudden, a huge shadow appeared and we looked up to see a huge green bug digimon with metal blades for hands coming at us.

"Sora, move!" TK cried tackling her and Biyomon down so they didn't get hit.

The flying digimon used their attacks on the bug, but he easily fly out of their reach.

Gatomon jumped up and punched the bug in the face, but he just knocked her down to the ground, not bothered by it as the white cat sulked.

"I'm sorry, but without my tail ring, I don't have enough power." She whimpered.

"Don't worry about it, I'll just have to armour digivolve. Dai, get the egg ready." Veemon said turning to me.

"Right." I nodded pulling my digivice out of my pocket.

Then, the earth under me crumbled away and I yelled as I fell down into the large pit, desperately grabbing for the wall, digging my fingers in to hold myself there.

There was grolwing under me and I looked to see a purple and white mole digimon with a drill for a nose.

"Drigomemon lives deep inside the caverns of the Digital World. His Drill Spin attack will make you wish you were at the dentist." Tentomon said.

Great, I hate the dentists…and doctors.

People who worked machines that can cause me pain or touch me when I don't like it, I don't like at all.

"Are you OK?" Veemon asked as he leaned over the side of the hole to see me.

I heard growling from above and knew instinctively nothing good was gonna happen.

"Mojymon is a frosty digimon from the snow mountains. His Bone Boomerang attack will make your head spin." Tentomon said.

After he was done, Veemon was hit over the head by a boomerang that was made of bone and he yelled as he fell down the hole.

I gasped and reached out to grab him, by as soon as I held his hand in mine, his weight pulled us down and we fell right in the grasps of Drimogemon and then blacked out.

(Later…)

I groaned as I started to wake up, my vision foggy, but when it cleared, I yelled when I saw that I was chained to the side of a mountain.

"Wh-where am I?" I asked.

"You're just hanging out." A smug voice said making me glare up at whoever said it.

Not funny at all.

"Who're you?" I asked as I saw a guy my age, maybe a bit older, dressed in dark blue and yellow with wild indigo hair.

"I'm your worst nightmare come to life." He said.

"Oh wow, I didn't know that it was you Jun who is the Digimon Emperor, only dressed as a guy. Have to say, you make a convincing one." I smirked as I said this.

So I like to tease people, sue me.

"Very funny." He said unamused.

"You said my worst nightmare. But really, you're the Digimon Emperor?" I asked.

"Speaking." He said mockingly.

"But you're just a kid like me." I pointed out making him laugh.

"I'm nothing like you, because if I were, then I'd be the one hanging from a cliff. Oh, that reminds me." He said snapping his fingers.

The wall across from me shifted and I saw that it was a door that flipped over to show Veemon was also chained up and I felt both relief and worry.

"Veemon!" I called down to him.

"Dai! Hey, great view isn't it?" he asked.

"Sadly, I haven't had the time to look. Quick, armour digivolve." I said.

"Er, just one problem. Aren't you gonna need these to pull off that little trick?" the Emperor asked as he held my D-3 and D-terminal.

He laughed again as I glared up at him, getting sick of that freaking laugh.

"Give me back my digivice and let Veemon go. He has nothing to do with this." I yelled up at him.

"Yeah, right. You've both been trespassing in my garden without my permission." He said.

Sorry, maybe next time you should put up a sign to warn people.

"As for your punishment, you'll be forced to watch Veemon as he becomes my slave." The Emperor said as he snapped his fingers again, a sick feeling in my chest rising as a dark ring floated down to my blue dragon.

"Veemon, no!" I cried as he smirked at it bravely.

"Ha! You'll never get me to be you slave. You might as well destroy me right now and get it over with." Veemon said confidently.

"As you wish." The Emperor said as the ring got closer, making my dragon laugh nervously.

"Take it easy, I was just kiddin'. Come on old buddy, don't cha know a good joke when you hear one? You know, a little comedy to lighten the mood. Ha ha, funny guy Veemon. C'mon!" Veemon said.

"Veemon, no." I said sadly with tears in my eyes.

I knew it, letting my walls down was a bad idea.

I'm losing him before I even got to know him.

"I don't hear anyone laughing now, Veemon." The Emperor said as the ring got closer.

"Leave him alone!" I yelled.

Then, out of nowhere, two red beams sot out and destroyed the ring, making us all gasp.

"Who's that?" the Emperor asked.

"Daisuke, hold on!" Yolei cried as she flew in on her own armour digimon's back.

Can't say I've never been happier to see her than right now.

"Save Veemon." I called to her.

The wall behind him was smashed and this yellow and purple digimon held him safely in his arms.

"Sorry to burst in on you like this." The digimon said.

"You coulda knocked." Veemon joked.

Something happened up on the ledge while Yolei freed me and the Emperor let my D-3 and D-terminal fly over the edge, Yolei catching them.

"Thank you!" she said.

Gatomon was then thrown over by the Empeor's whip, Tentomon catching her before she fell.

"Snimon, Mojyamon, Drimogemon." The Emperor called out the three digimon and they appeared, snarling while Halsemon, Yolei's partner, flew us down to where the others were, Digmon, Cody's partner, set Veemon down.

"Here you go." Yolei said handing me my devices.

"Thanks a lot, Yolei. Now it's time for a little payback." I said turning to Veemon with my D-3 and D-terminal back.

"Yeah!" Veemon cheered.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I cried.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

Snimon then started flying down to us as Yolei climbed back up on Halsemon's back.

"Hold on tight, Yolei." He said.

"Uh, OK." She said as he took to the air.

"Let's show them what armour digimon can do against the slaves of the Emperor." Flamedramon said.

Drigmogemon wnet down into the earth, Digmon following after him as Mojyamon threw a large sharp pillar of ice at my dragon, who stood his ground and caught it, the ice quickly melting away.

"When it's fire against ice…fire always wins." He said then used his Fire Rocket, shooting four fireballs at the snow beast, destroying his dark ring.

"Yeah, you did it, Flamedramon!" I cheered.

Snimon attacked Halsemon with his sickles that shot out violet lights at him, but Halsemon flipped around to avoid it, making Yolei cry out at the aerodynamics.

Halsemon fired off his Tempest Wing, then swooped out of the way as the attack destroyed the ring on Snimon.

"You did it, Halsemon!" Yolei said.

Digmon came back up with Drimogemon, his dark ring gone and then the Champions went back into their Rookie stages.

"Sorry we had to fight you, but we had to get rid of the dark rings. I hope we're still buds." Veemon said to the three big guys.

"It's OK. Thanks for saving us." Mojyamon said as he and the other two started leaving.

"Being the Emperor's slave was the worst! All day long it's 'destroy this', 'destroy that', 'Get me a cappuccino'. Oy." Mojyamon complained.

"Arg, I swear that guy just gets on my nerves. He's such an egomaniac. A complete and total jerk." I huffed crossing my arms.

"Settle down." Hawkmon said making me look over to him.

Dude, you're not the one who spoke with him.

"So Yolei, will I be able to count on your assistance from now on?" he asked his partner, who was puffed up in pride.

"Absolutely, 100%." She said.

"And will we be a team, Cody, when I'm not nappin'?" Armadillomon asked.

"Pf course, I'd be honored to be your partner." Cody said with a respectful bow of his head.

"Well, it looks like the new Digidestined team doesn't need us around anymore." Sora said making the old team members look at her.

"I don't know. I still think we have a lot of work ahead of us." Izzy said.

"We can still help them fight the Emperor." Biyomon said.

"And we can also provide them with advice and guidance." Tentomon said.

"What a team." Sora smiled.

I shook my head at that and picked Veemon up.

"Well, it's time to go home." I said as we all went to the nearest portal and then went through, us new kids' digimon coming with us, including Kari and TK's partners.

We all yelled as we fell out, me being on the very bottom of the pile with everyone on top of me, except for TK and Patamon who were in a chair.

Seriously, all these people on my back and someone on my head is not healthy for me.

"What happened to you guys?" Tai asked as he ran into the room.

"Please don't ask." We said.

"The new digimon returned to their In-Training forms." Tai pinted out making me look up to see an adorable, smaller version of Veemon sitting on top of my head.

"Huh? Ah!" I gasped.

"Wow. He's so cute!" Yolei gushed hugging the pink bird head with tiny wings.

"I don't understand how this little fella can turn himself into such a great big creature like Digmon." Cody said as he looked over the cream colored head with wing like ears.

"Are we gonna have to do this every time we come back?" Kari asked as he half lay on me and Izzy, who was half way on me like Yolei, Sora and Cody.

"And I thought digivolving was a tough job." Patamon said.

This coming from the guy who is nowhere near the pile.

"Well, at least we made it back to the real world safe and sound." TK said.

"Hmm, except Biyomon and Tentomon." Sora said as the computer beeped.

"_Sora!"_ the bird called making us all look over to the screen where she and Tentomon were.

"_Don't worry. We'll both be safe here because the Digimon Emperor never comes out at night."_ She said.

"_Imagine; all that power and he's afraid of the dark."_ Tentomon said.

"Well, get some rest. You'll need it for tomorrow." The orange haired girl said.

"Yeah, that's when we'll go back to the Digital World and beat that Digimon Emperor once and for all. But, just one thing we have to do before that." I said as a tick mark bulged on my temple.

"What's that?" Kari asked.

"GET OFFA MY BACK!"

To be continued…


	4. A New Digitude

"A New Digitude"

**I have 4 votes for Yamasuke, 2 Daikeru, 1 Taisuke and two Kensuke. Hope you guys like it. Please enjoy and review.**

The school day was finally over and I was running to the computer lab with TK and Kari eager to see the digimon after we had to leave them there last night.

I don't know why, but it was TK's idea to do it and I just went along with it since everyone else agreed to it before I could say anything.

I knew he and I weren't going to see eye to eye.

At least Gatomon and Patamon would be there to watch them and keep the little guys out of trouble.

We got to the doors and I slowly slid the door open, hearing the breathing of them of the other side.

"Smells like Dai." My partner's voice came.

I slid the door the rest of the way open, arms crossed.

"Are you saying I smell?" I asked slightly offended by that.

"It is Dai!" my little dragon cheered jumping up into my arms, making me laugh and hug him.

He's just too cute to stay mad at.

"Demiveemon, did you guys have a good day at school?" I asked.

"Where's Yolei?" asked Poromon.

"Yeah, and Cody too?" asked Upamon.

"Don't worry about it. They're both on their way over." Kari said with a smile.

"Oh, here's someone now." I said hearing footsteps running down the hall.

"Sorry I'm late! I brought goodies from my family's convenience store!" Yolei yelled as she came in with a big grocery bag.

"Good idea. In-training digimon are bottomless pits." TK said.

"That's pretty cool that your family owns a convenience store." I said trying to be nice as I set Demiveemon down as all the other digimon gathered around the food she put down.

"It's not that glamorous. I have to pay for the food I eat, even though I work there. But the job comes with a great pension plan." Yolei said making me wonder what she meant by that.

"What is it?" Demiveemon asked.

"Can we eat it? I'm hungry." Poromon asked looking at the food.

"Of course you can eat it, watch me." Patamon said as he took a juice pack and slurped it making the new digimon all smile.

"The buffet is now open!" Upamon cheered as they all started eating while Gatomon watched unimpressed.

"This is the best thing I've ever tasted in my whole life! All two days of it." Upamon said.

"Me too!" Demiveemon chirped eating a chocolate bar while Poromon drank something, his cheeks turning red as he giggled and started flying around the room.

"IT'S HOT! HOT! HOT!" he cried as he swooped down and bumped into Demiveemon and Upamon, the three giggling as I felt a soft smile appear on my lips at the sight.

Really, they just warmed my heart up at the sight of them.

How could anyone not find them so sweet?

"I hope my first litter doesn't act like this." Gatomon muttered with her ears drooped down.

I guess if you're like Gatomon.

I shook my head and had my neutral look back on as I looked at Yolei.

"Let's check to see if the gate's open." I said to her and she went over to check the computer.

"It's open. Perfecto. Let's get going." She cheered.

"Wait a minute guys. We can't leave yet. Cody's not here." Kari said as I looked around to see the boy still hadn't gotten there yet.

Man, he's just as invisible as I am.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He's still in the lunch room. Last time I checked, he was still chewing the same carrot 50 times." The child of Love said.

"I hope he hurries." I said looking down at the digimon as they ate.

"Let's watch some TV to pass the time." Yolei said as she pulled up a news report on the computer.

"Yeah, let's see what's on." The child of Light agreed as she and TK walked over.

_"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you the latest story."_ a news woman said.

_"The results of the national computer programing contest were just announced. And the winner is boy genius, Ken Ichijouji."_

Ken was a kid our age with indigo hair and was famous for just about everything.

Academics, sports, you name it.

_"There were many well deserving geniuses out there and I am humbled to think that the judges chose me to receive the top prize." _Ken said with a smile that was obviously fake and done for the cameras as he turned away from a row of computers he was working on.

"Wow, he's better than Tai." I said as they showed him playing soccer.

"Don't let my brother hear you say that." Kari joked as Cody walked into the room, Upamon bouncing over to him.

_"Ken's talents include being able to play one game of chess while everyone watches. Just last week, he balanced the world's biggest check book. And that's not all. He's a champion in judo and a star on the all states soccer team. And girls, he's single!"_ the woman said.

I scoffed at that.

OK, so maybe he's cute, but I'm not interested and I don't get why some girls freak over him just because he's a hot shot.

"I heard that this kid is so smart that he once gave his teachers homework." Cody said making the others all look at him in surprise.

"I'd pay to see that." I said with a smirk.

"Cody, when did you get here?" the child of Light asked.

"Just a moment ago." He said.

"Hey, maybe Ken knows how to defeat the Digimon Emperor." TK joked making Yolei huff as she turned off the news cast.

"Hmph. I know more about the Digital World than that stupid kid." She said frowning.

"He may be stupid, but he's a genius." I stated making her grumble under her breath.

"Hey, Kari?" Gatomon called making her partner look down at her with a smile as the rest of the digimon stood by the cat.

"What is it, Gatomon?" Kari asked.

"We're ready to go back to the Digital World now." Patamon said.

"Well, everyone's here now, so let's go." The child of Hope said as we all held up our D-3s and digivices, getting pulled into the portal.

"You guys are back to normal." Cody gasped as we looked at our partners after we landed in the forest.

"Yep." Veemon nodded.

"We change back when we return to the Digital World." Armadillomon said.

Suddenly, my D-3 went off, so I pulled it out to check it and saw that I was getting a signal of two digi eggs further off from us.

"What's going on?" Kari asked checking her digivice as everyone else did the same.

"A digi-egg." Cody said.

"What?" TK asked.

"Where is it?" Veemon asked.

"The digivice says it's not far from here." Cody said.

"More digi-eggs? But we already have ours." I said wondering what was going on.

"Who're they for?" Yolei asked.

"We'll never know unless we look for them." Kari said.

"Right, let's go." I said as we walked through the forest.

I couldn't help but notice that it was getting darker and colder as we walked, searching for the digi eggs.

"Hey, it's getting pretty dark here, I wonder why." I said since it was still 3:00 pm.

The sun shouldn't be setting for another two hours.

"Don't worry Daisuke, I'll hold your hand if you're scared." TK offered making me shoot a look at him.

"You might want to rethink that." Gatomon said seeing the look.

"Yeah, besides, she has me to hold her hand." Veemon said taking my hand and I looked down at him with a smile as he gave me a sweet look.

"Daisuke's never been afraid of the dark. I don't there's anything that can scare her." Kari stated as we continued.

That wasn't true at all.

I do have something that I'm afraid of.

I'm afraid of being hurt by my friends and left like dust in the wind again like last time.

My D-3 beeped again making me look at it to see the blinking lights of the two digi eggs.

"I'm getting something. It's just up there ahead of us." I said as we continued on in the forest and it started to get a bit warmer and lighter out.

"What are you doing here?" a voice snapped.

We all turned to see who it was and Yolei cried out at the sight of the Digimon Emperor as I glared at him.

"Look out!" Yolei cried.

"I'll get him." Veemon said.

He then charged at the boy, but he went right through him, causing all of us to gasp as Veemon rammed into a tree that was on the other side.

"Veemon!" I called out worried about him.

"It's just an illusion! He's not really there." TK said.

"Who do you think you are sneaking into the Digital World? What do you think this is, a movie theater or something?" the Emperor scolded.

We all kept quiet as we looked at each other in confusion wondering what the heck he was going on about.

"What's he talking about?" the child of Knowledge asked.

"Ordinary children are not allowed in the Digital World! Only the Digidestinds are!" the Emperor said.

"Huh?" we asked.

That guy needs to get his head checked and badly.

"But we are the Digidestinds." I said making him scoff.

"You? The Digidestinds? That's physically impossible." the Emperor said.

He is getting on my very last nerve.

"Why is that impossible?" TK asked.

"Yeah, why can't we be?" Kari asked looking out from around TK as he shielded her.

"It's simple. Based on the laws of physics, I have determined that only perfect human beings can be Digidestinds, and of course, I am the only perfect human being." the Emperor gloated.

I snorted at that.

"You? Perfect? Oh please, don't make me laugh." I said as the illusion faded away.

The ground shook and the trees behind us were torn down by a large t-rex digimon with the Emperor standing on his shoulder.

This guy is way too full of himself.

"You are intruders in a place you don't belong! You are ordered to here by evacuate the premises without further notice!" he threatened.

"The land lord told my uncle the same thing." I said with my hands on my hips as Veemon rushed over to my side, all the digimon standing their ground to protect their partners.

"We have just as much right to be here than you!" TK yelled.

"This world and everything in it belongs to me, now all of you, get out!" the Emperor ordered.

Belongs to him?

He doesn't own a single thing here, the creep.

I swear, every word he says just annoys me to high heaven.

I wish he'd just come down here and face us himself that way we can really show him a lesson he deserves.

"Try and make us!" Yolei yelled.

"Why must everyone question my authority? Must it always become a great big production? Get them, Tyranamon!" the Emperor ordered.

The dino then went after us, but we jumped back and pulled out our D-3s.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Cody, Yolei and I cried as orange, red and violet lights sounded us and our digimon.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Halsemon: the Wings of Love!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

"This is why I'm the genious and you're not. You keep using the same attacks while I keep coming up with new ideas." The Emperor said.

I hate him, the smug creep.

The three Champions fought off the dino while we all kept out of the way, but Gatomon and Patamon were tensed up and annoyed from not being able to digivolve.

Flamedramon used his fire attacks on Tyranomon, but it was countered, so Halsemon swooped in and used his own attack, successfully knocking the dino back, making us all cheer.

How'd you like that, ho shot?

"Do you really think I wouldn't have a back-up plan? How about a little multiplication? What's 1 times 5?" the Emperor asked mockingly as four more Tyranomon came bursting through the clearing.

"There are five of them now!" Yolei cried as we all stood closely together as our digimon got into battle with all of the Tyranomon.

"Why don't you let us digivolve so we can fight? What are you afraid of?" Gatomon yelled with Patamon glaring up at the Emperor behind her.

"Yeah!" the orange hamster-bat said.

"As long as I have this digivice, you'll never digivolve." The Emperor taunted as he held out his black and gray D-3, then laughed evilly.

What a minute, if he has a D-3, then doesn't that make him one of us?

What could have happened to make him this way?

"And besides, you two are useless. I might as well get rid of you two." He said motioning for the Tyranomon to attack the cat and hamster-bat, making TK and Kari cry out in worry as they were thrown back into a tree.

"I thought that cats are always supposed to land on their feet" Patamon groaned.

"Oh shut up." Gatomon muttered back before both of them jumped up and dodged another attack sent at them.

They were about to get hit again, but Digmon jumped in and blocked it.

"Hello boys." He said.

"That's not fair, we're out numbered!" TK cried.

"Thanks, captain obvious." I hissed as we were surrounded.

"Have you heard of the old saying 'it's not how you play the game, it's about if you win or lose?'" the Emperor asked with a smirk.

I'm pretty sure that's backwards.

"We haven't got time! We have to go find the other digi egg." Cody said looking down at his D-3.

"But Cody we don't even know who it belongs to." The child of love said.

"Just go. We'll hold them off while you three get them." I said to the children of Knowledge, Hope and Light.

"Come on guys." Cody called as he took off with the other two.

"Gatomon, let's go." Kari called to her partner and she ran over to her with Patamon.

"Open wide." Digmon sang as he drilled two dinos in their mouths.

Two others were about to chase after TK, Kari and Cody, but Flamedramon and Halsemon jumped in front of them, cutting them off.

"Where do you think you're going?" my dragon asked.

Patamon stopped flying and used his Boom Bubble on the Tyranomon to get them to back off, but it didn't work, so TK called him back as Yolei and I stayed back with the three armour digimon.

The Tyranomon were too strong and knocked all of the armour digimon back, one dino sending a fiery blast at Yolei, but I pushed her out of the way before she could get hit.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Yeah, thanks. I hope the others hurry." She said as we both got up from the ground as a Tyranomon nearly stepped on us.

The blasts of flames hit the three Champions, turning them back into their Rookie forms.

"Veemon!" I cried.

"Hawkmon!" Yolei cried as the Emperor laughed at us.

"You're done for now." He said as we glared up at him as all of the dinos said.

"Daisuke, we're here!" Kari's voice called making us look up to see her ridding on a beautiful feline digimon with wings and TK was on a golden flying horse digimon with Cody ridding with them.

"Oh wow! Too cool." Armadillomon gasped.

"This armor digivolving won't always save you. It's just a matter of time before I learn how to stop that too." The Emperor said as Kari, TK and Cody ran over to us and the two Celestials used their Golden Noose to tie the Tyranomon up, then destroyed the dark rings they had, the Emperor making his getaway while we were detracted.

"Yeah! Their dark rings are gone!" Yolei cheered.

"I wanna get a picture of this." Kari said as she pulled up her camera from around her neck and snapped the picture of the Tyranomon walking off into the sunset.

After that we all went back to the real world, me being on the bottom of the dog pile yet again.

"Oh, the Tyranomon's eyes look red. Oh, wait. They're always red." Kari said as she uploaded the picture she took on her computer.

"Man, that Digimon Emperor guy is such a jerk. I can't wait to beat him." TK said with a frown on his face along with a deep, thoughtful look.

"You'll defeat the Emperor, won't you, Daisuke?" Kari asked looking at me making me quirk a brow at her.

"I know so. We'd be able to beat him easily if he stopped hiding behind his slaves." I said.

Well maybe we've been going on about this the wrong way." Cody said suddenly making us look at him.

"We put together quite a little army here, so maybe if we found out the Digimon Emperor's human identity then maybe we can defeat him on our side." He said.

Wow, this kid is smart.

"Well, Cody, you're a little young to be worrying about this." Yolei said with a smile.

"Yeah, leave this to us older kids." TK said with a nod making me frown and whack him over the head.

"Ouch!" he said holding his head.

"The kid has a point, listen to him." I said making the youngest of our group smile.

"Let's hurry up and get home. I don't know about you, but I have to cook dinner tonight." I said picking up Demiveemon.

"Yay, I get to go home with Dai!" he cheered snuggling up to me and I smiled down at him.

"She's right, we need to get going or else my parents will start to worry." Kari said standing up.

We all then split up, Kari walking with me since we lived close.

"That was nice what you did for Cody." She said.

"He's a smart kid, plus it sucks when people don't listen to you." I stated when we came to my apartment.

"See you tomorrow." She said with a nod of her head before she ran off.

I watched her as she went before I sighed and walked to my apartment, Demiveemon looking around in curiosity as I went.

To be continued…


	5. Iron Vegiemon

"Iron Vegimon"

**OK, here is the next chapter and I think I'm going to make this story a Yamasuke. Sorry to those who voted for something else. I hope you guys like this chapter. Please enjoy and review.**

Today we're in the Digital World freeing some of the captives, Tai and Agumon with us to help out.

The lizard used his Pepper Breath on the metal bars to make a hole in them, then Veemon used his V-Head Butt to knock the rest of the bars down as some digimon called Gotsumon came out.

"Come on, let's rock." Veemon said leading them out and we all started making a run for it so we didn't get caught, but this all seemed a little too easy for my taste.

"That…was…easy." I panted out as we ran and we didn't stop until we had the large group of Gotsumon far away from the arena that had the cages, the rock heads falling to the ground to exhaustion.

"You guys are officially fugitives." Agumon said to them.

"Something was weird." TK said as Patamon said jumping into his arms.

"Like what?" the hamster-bat asked.

"The fact that it was so easy for us break out of that prison there wasn't a single guard anywhere around. It's like he wanted us to do it. I think he's up to something." TK said.

"I hate to say it, but you're right." I said crossing my arms and frowned in thought.

"This guy is not gonna let us get away that easy without some kind of reason." Kari said.

"We'll worry about it later. Let's get back to the real world. I'm starving. I can practically smell the cafeteria from here." Tai said as we all began waking back to the portal.

As soon as we all got into the computer lab, everyone landed on top of me yet AGAIN including the Gotsumon.

Yolei and Izzy were in the room and the child of Love yelled in shock at the sight of the rock digimon.

"Are you crazy bringing the Gotsumon back from the Digital World?" Izzy yelled at us.

"But we didn't have a choice. We couldn't just leave them there for the Digimon Emperor to make into slaves, right?" Tai asked looking to his sister.

"Yep." She nodded.

"But how are we going to explain it if Mr. Fujiyama happens to come in here?" Yolei asked as she sat at the computer.

"Don't worry. I'll tell him I'm taking a sculpting class and these are some of my early masterpieces. Hit it boys." Cody said to the Gotsumon who all struck poses making me bite my lip to not laugh at how ridiculous they looked.

"Eesh. Early rejects might be a better phrase." Yolei muttered with a nervous smile as Izzy walked over to her.

"Yolei, I've got a big favour to ask. Would it be all right with you if I borrowed your digivice?" he asked and she stood up.

"But what for?" she asked.

"Well, it's obvious that the power from your digivices opens the gate to the Digital World. Our old digivices don't seem to work." Izzy said.

"Izzy's right. I've tried using mine, but no luck." Tai said holding his digivice.

"The only way we can get into the Digital World is if one of you opens the gate for us." He said.

"So I wanted to try an experiment with the new digivices, if that's OK with you." Izzy said as Yolei smiled and took out her D-3 handing it over to him.

The next day after school my sister was rushing out the door to go see some concert done by this local boy band called the Teenage Wolves and she was trying to get me to join her, but I refused.

"Every time we go to see a band it's because they are filled with cute guys and the music sucks." I said as I sat at the table with Mom while Jun put her shirt with boys' names written all over it.

"Oh, they couldn't have been that bad." Mom said with a wave of her hand.

"Are you kidding? The last band that we saw sucked so bad I cried." I said secretly sneaking cookies to Demiveemon who was on my lap.

"I thought you said those were tears of joy." Jun said as she stuffed her feet into her shoes.

"Yes, because we were leaving." I said making Mom chuckle.

"Whatever. See you later." My sister said waving before she went out the door.

"Dai, I noticed you've been coming home later than usual. Anything you want to tell me?" Mom asked.

"Oh, well, I'm in the computer club with Kari, Yolei and some other kids." I said as she smiled.

"It's nice to see that you're making friends now." She said making me give her a strange look.

She's been noticing that?

Wow, I thought my parents didn't care about my life or Jun's since they were so busy all of the time with their jobs.

The main reason I was friends with the Kamiyas was because I had someone to spend time with and have people who cared about me, their parents being such wonderful people as they took me in as one of their own.

"Yeah, well, I guess…I'm just trying harder this year to make new friends." I said with a shrug as I picked up a cookie and took a bite from it as Mom watched me with a gleam in her eyes.

"Hmm. Does that mean you'll be getting a boyfriend?" she asked just as Dad walked into the room.

I choked on my cookie as my dad had an enraged and horrified look on his face.

"What was that about my daughter having a boyfriend?" he asked storming over to the table and taking a seat as I grabbed my glass of milk and started chugging down the milk to stop the choking.

"Oh, calm down, dear. She hasn't gotten a boyfriend. Not yet at least." Mom said with an amused smile.

"Not ever!" I said.

"Good, because you're too young. It's bad enough with Jun being obsessed over boys, but I really don't want my youngest to act like that." Dad said as he ran his finger through his black hair.

"Please. There is no boy in the entire world who could make me fall for them." I said crossing my arms.

"I wouldn't say that if I were you. You might just jinx yourself." Mom said knowingly.

I got up and went to my room to get my shampoo and body wash so that I could take a shower.

I filled the sink with water and bubble bath, then set Demiveemon down in it so he could play and wash up too while I was washing in the shower.

I undressed, tugged my hair out of the ponytail I always kept it in, then stepped under the warm spray of water, enjoying it as I used the honey scented shampoo and body wash.

I could see my dragon as he happily splashed around in the sink, rubbing himself with the bar of soap I left for him.

Honestly, what was my mom even thinking?

Me falling for a guy?

OK, maybe I once had a small, tiny crush on Tai, but that was it.

I never liked a guy ever again after that and I don't plan on it happening to me ever again.

I finished up showering, then grabbed the giggling Demiveemon out of the sink, drying him off as he was wrapped up in a towel, then went to my room with my bathrobe around me.

I dried off and changed into a blue long sleeved shirt, white shorts and blue socks as I rested with my dragon, watching TV.

Soon enough, my D-terminal went off and I answered it to see that Yolei sent me a message.

"_EMERGENCY! _

_Hurry back to school_

_-Yolei"_ I read.

"Well, looks like we have to get going." I said gathering my partner, D-terminal and D-3 before I ran out to the door, putting my shoes on.

"Daisuke, where are you going?" Dad called.

"Yolei called. She wants me back at the school for a club meeting. I'll be back later. Bye!" I called then ran out the door, the door then slamming shut behind me.

When I finally got to the school, I saw that Yolei, Cody and Kari were already there waiting.

"Hey, where's TK?" I asked walking in and set Demiveemon on the floor with the other digimon.

"He should be here soon. He was with his brother this afternoon." Kari said.

"He has a brother?" I asked.

"Yeah, he's Tai's age and also his best friend." She said.

"Kind of like how TK is your best friend, right, Kari?" Gatomon asked with a smile and I felt like a knife was stabbed right into my heart.

"Right." The child of Light nodded.

The door opened again and I turned to see that TK had just made it with Patamon on his head.

"We're here. What's the problem?" the blonde asked.

Yolei was about to say something but she stopped and I felt my eyes widen when a teenager with long blonde hair and azure eyes came into the room dressed in the same school uniform as Tai and Izzy, only it looked way better on him.

"Who's that with you, TK?" Cody asked.

"Oh, right. Everyone, this is my brother Matt. He was one of the older Digidestinds." TK explained with a smile as Matt looked around to all of us, his eyes stopping on me with a curious look.

I looked away as my cheeks heated up, but I wasn't sure why they were though.

"So these are the new Digidestinds, huh?" Matt asked.

"Yep." Kari said as she walked over to him.

"This is Yolei and Poromon, the new child of Love." She said.

"Nice to meet you." Yolei said.

"This is Cody and Upamon, the new child of Knowledge." Kari continued.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Cody Hida." The youngest of our group said with a bow.

Kari came over to me and took my arm, making me look at her curiously as she pulled me over to the blonde brothers.

"And this is Daisuke and Demiveemon, the new leader and child of Courage." She said.

I looked up into Matt's eyes and saw that he was smiling a bit as he held his hand out.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Matt Ishida." He said.

"Um, hi." I said taking his hand, shocked at how timid my voice sounded and it seemed like Kari was just as shocked by the look she was giving me.

We then turned our attention over to Yolei as she worked at the computer, all of us crowding around her.

"Back off guys, you're making me nervous." She said.

"Can't you go any faster?" I asked as she frowned.

"All right, the gate's open. Shall we go?" She said.

I pulled out my D-3 as Demiveemon hopped up on my shoulder.

We all held our digivices up to the screen, except for Yolei, and went through the portal coming out at a lake where some sort of lizard/canine creature was lying and he didn't look too good.

"Gabumon!" Matt called in worry as the digimon struggled to get up and smiled a bit.

"Oh, Matt." He said.

"Gabumon are you OK?" Matt asked as he ran over and knelt in front of the digimon.

"Let's just say I'll never look at steam vegetables the same way." Gabumon joked.

"OK, I want you to tell me everything that happened." Matt said.

"Good, we never talk anymore." Gabumon said.

"_Hey everybody."_ Yolei called making us look over to her on the screen.

"_I'm going over to Izzy's to get my digivice back and then I'll meet up with you there."_ She said getting up to leave.

"_Have no fear while Yolei is gone. This place shall be guarded by Poromon." _The pink bird said.

"Stay in touch." I said.

"Why do they call those things on top of the TV rabbit ears? Why don't they call hem cat ears? After all, when was the last time you saw a rabbit sleeping on top of the TV?" Gatomon asked making Kari give her a look.

"This is what you think of?" she asked.

"It's a good question." Veemon said as he scrunched his face up in thought while Gatomon nodded at his words.

"OK, break's over. Let's get back to work." Patamon said.

Gabumon then started leading us to where he was before with some Gazimon when they were attacked by Vegiemon and RedVegiemon.

"It's a small village called Santa Caria." Gabumon said.

"Such a nice name for a bad place." I muttered as Veemon stuck close by me as we walked.

"It was always a quiet place. Everyone minded their own business and then the Digimon Emperor came along." Gabumon said as we saw the village in the mountains with a tall black tower.

"Look, there's one of those things that scared the Gotsumon." Gatomon said.

"The Emperor calls them control spires." Gabumon said.

"Let's go." I said about to walk off to scout the place out.

"Wait!" Matt called.

"Huh?" I asked turning back to him and was it just me or did he not look happy?

"We can't just rush in there. For all you know, he's in there waiting for us and this whole thing is just some sort of ambush." He said.

Thanks for telling me something I hadn't figured out on my own, dude.

I wasn't gonna go rushing in like some sort of moron; I'm not Tai for god's sake.

"What's the big deal? All we have to do is armour digivolve and blow them apart." Veemon said making me shake my head since I knew someone was going to have something to say about this.

"It's not that simple. He might be using some of the digimon hostages as a shield to protect himself." TK said.

"TK's right, we have to find a way to rescue the hostages and make sure that none of them get hurt." Kari said.

"Then why don't we just act like hostages? Have our digimon pretend to be the Emperors guards and tie us up and lead us through." I said nonchalantly.

Everyone was quiet as they processed this and soon enough the digimon had black metal around their arms, us humans were tied up and we were being pushed around to the gate.

"Stop right there!" the Vegiemon at the gate said when they saw us.

"Identify yourselves." Vegiemon1 said.

"It's OK, we're one of you." Gatomon said lifting her paw up to show off the fake ring she wore.

"We just captured these digimon and their friends." She said as we were let through, those of our digimon posing as slaves jostling us to make us move faster.

"Where are you taking us?" Patamon cried.

"Pipe down! You're all going to jail where you belong." Armadillomon said as the Vegiemon laughed.

As soon as we were walking up the tall stairs to the mountain in the town, we all stopped when we knew we were safe.

"Those guys didn't even notice these rings are plastic." Patamon said.

"Don't start feeling too frisky yet. The first set of guards were just flunkies. We haven't even faced the taste of the litter and even if we get past them, we still have to find a way to destroy the control spire." Gatomon said before we started walking again.

As soon as we got to the cells where the digimon were prisoners, we were untied by the Vegiemon and thrown in the cell with a group of miserable Gazimon.

"Thanks for bringing the prisoners in. the Emperor will be pleased. We could've caught them ourselves you know, but I guess you beat us to the punch." Vegiemon2 said, but then gasped as our digimon took off the fake rings.

"By the way, speaking of punch…Lightning Paw!" Gatomon yowled delivering a powerful punch to the Vegiemon.

Dang, she's one wild cat.

Veemon and Armadillomon got in on the fight while Patamon unlocked the cells and we all escaped, running out to go deal with the spire next.

The hamster-bat was flying ahead, but stopped when we came to a turned corner.

"Quiet, there are more guards." Patamon said.

"The exit is blocked. We'll never get out now." Veemon said as we hid in that corner, watching the Vegiemon as they talked about who knows what.

Something about string.

Geez, if I were the Emperor I'd be pretty pissed by how they were wasting their time instead of working.

"We're gonna have to find another way." I said.

"What do you mean another way?" TK asked making me look at him.

"Oh, what? You wanna wait for them to move? The only other option is to fight them." I said.

"She's right; we should try to find another way." Matt said.

And that's what we did.

We snuck off unseen and started walking up another path to the mountain.

"Hey, Daisuke, I almost forgot. I saw your sister today." TK said after twenty minutes of walking.

I looked at him in confusion.

"And?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing really. You two just…don't seem very alike." He said.

"Yes, she obsesses over boys and I could care less. Your point being?" I asked.

"He was just asking. You don't have to be rude you know." Kari scolded.

I felt my fists clench tightly that if I wasn't wearing gloves I'm sure my nails would be cutting into my palms.

I'm the rude one?

At least I'm not an inconsiderate hypocrite who easily replaces her friends and just dumps the other one, then four years later tries to go on like nothing ever happened.

Veemon looked at me as I hung back at the end of the group as my anger built at my once best friend.

I swear, she just acts so sweet and innocent as if she can do no wrong.

"Dai, what's the matter?" Veemon asked as we just let the others continue walking.

My anger faded away and all that was left was depression and I'm sure it was showing on my face.

"It's nothing you need to worry about." I said when I started walking.

"Knock, knock." He said suddenly making me look at him in surprise.

**(Later…)**

"How do we get down from here?" TK asked as he stared down at the ledge we were on.

We finally made it to the control spire, but we needed another way to get down from here in case the Vegiemon came after us.

"There's no way to do it. It's too steep." Kari said.

"If we only had a rope or something we could climb down." Matt said.

"No problem. I'll go look for one." Gabumon said as he turned to leave, but was stopped by the Gazimon.

"Wait, we'll be the rope. We just hang onto each other and you can climb down the bunny slope. Our way of saying thanks." Gazimon1 said.

"That'd be great. Let's go." Gabumon said as the Gazimon got to work, all of us watching.

They were stopped by these pink sludge things getting thrown at them, knocking them back.

A group of Vegiemon had just appared and a red one was leading them

"Ha! No one's going anywhere." A red Vegiemon said.

"All right Dai, it's time for action. I'm gonna take that over grown tomato and turn him into vegetable soup." Veemon said getting into a fighting stance making me look down at him.

What?

"I'm gonna make vegetarians around the world proud. That oughta cheer you up." He said as he charged at RedVegiemon.

"Hey, wait!" I called.

He didn't listen as he kept running and was about to use his V Head Butt, but he was the one that got hit right in the head by RedVegiemon.

"And now for a side dish. Chilli Pepper Pummel!" RedVegiemon called burping out red peppers that hit my dragon in the face, exploding into tiny flames as they hit him.

"Veemon, armour digivolve!" I called out getting my D-3.

"Yeah, -"Cody called, but he was tackled by a Vegiemon and was tied up and so was I.

Patamon tried to fly in to help Veemon, but the Chilli Pepper Pummel hit him too while Kari and TK were tied up.

RedVegieon used his Stink Jet, which was a smog of foul smelling rotting vegetables over Matt, Gabumon, Gatomon, Armadillomon and the Vegiemon before they were tied up.

RedVegiemon tied Veemon up and was holding him above his head, smirking.

"Put me down or I'll toss you like a salad!" my dragon cried.

"In case you forgot, I have the upper hand here." RedVegiemon said as he slammed Veemon down, making me bit my lip in worry as the others cried out in worry.

"Veemon!" I yelled as I struggled against the two Vegiemon holding me.

"The key to good cooking is to always tenderize the thoroughly like so." RedVegiemon said as he started punching Veemon as he lay on the ground.

I watched on in horror, not sure what to do as he stood up, weak but still ready to go.

"Is that your best shot?" he grunted.

"Are you kidding? We're just getting started. How do you feel about flying?" RedVegiemon taunted as he punched Veemon right across the face, sending him flying a few feet away.

"I can't watch this." Gabumon said with his eyes closed.

"Veemon doesn't stand a chance against him." Matt said.

I struggled more against the Vegiemon who held me, a third grabbing onto me and made me fall to my knees.

"Veemon!" I yelled.

"Combine all your ingredients in a bowel, next stir. Blend, mix, frappe and voila! The first course." RedVegiemon said as he kept beating on Veemon, everyone covering their eyes and whimpering while I watched every hit that was thrown.

Tears were in my eyes now, a few streaming down my face as I watched him in a great amount of pain, but was still able to get back up.

"Now the entre." The evil vegie said.

"No matter what you do, I'll never give up." Veemon panted as he forced himself to stand again.

"I have to do my best to cheer Dai up. Whatever the costs." He said making me look at him in shock.

This whole thing is my fault.

Veemon was only cracking jokes and fighting just to make me feel better because he knew how sad I saw.

No one has ever tried so hard to make me happy before this time.

If anything happened to him, I'll never forgive myself.

I forced myself to stand up, despite the pain and weight of the three Vegiemon holding me down.

"Veemon, you can stop now!" I called trying to smile and sound happy.

"I'm happy, really." I said.

"You are?" he asked turning to look at me, but that just cost him a punch in the face, but the hit also landed in the spire that Veemon was standing in front of, making a big crack.

"Leave him alone now! You hear me? He's had enough!" I yelled.

"I don' doubt he's feeling a little full, but he must have saved room for desert and I've cooked up a sweet surprise!" RedVegiemon said.

"If only I could digivolve." Gabumon said.

"There must be a way." Matt said as he held onto his digivice.

"But how?" Gabumon asked as Veemon was punched in the gut, slamming up against the spire.

"VEEMON!" I yelled seeing the cracks made from the force of the hit.

"And now for the surprise I promised you. A double helping of…Spike Punch!" RedVegiemon said as he went to punch him again.

"VEEMON!" I yelled.

"Duck!" Matt yelled.

"Now!" Gabumon called.

Veemon ducked down and RedVegiemon's fists smashed right into the spire, blue crackles of electricity erupting around the black stone tower.

Matt's digivice started beeping making him smile as the Vegiemon let us go and ran away while Gabumon was covered in white light.

"Gabumon digivolve too…GARURUMON!"

"What?!" RedVegiemon gasped as the large blue and white wolf growled at him.

"Gabumon, how did you digivolve?" Matt asked.

I looked at my D-3 as Garurumon used his Howling blaster, the blue streams of flame going after the scared Vegiemon.

Time for us to get a little payback too.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I yelled.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

RedVegiemon used his Chilli Pepper Pummel on Flamedramon, but my dragon held out his hands blocking it.

Then he used Flame Fist, punching the evil vegie back.

"I think it's time to give this guy a real a cooking lesson." I said crossing my arms with a smirk.

"You want a piece of me?" RedVegiemon asked going to punch Flamedramon, but my dragon grabbed his fists, both trying to push the other back.

Flamedramon then pulled RedVegiemon down, then lifted him up and slammed him down onto the ground.

"That hurt." RedVegiemon said as Flamedramon let go of him, then used his Fire Rockets to torch the black ring.

"I've heard of grilled vegetables, but this is ridiculous!" he said as he fell back, the ring shattering.

"You did it!" I cried running over to Flamedramon and hugging him, missing the blush he had.

"Daisuke!" I heard someone call and turned to see Yolei and Hawkmon running over with the Gotsumon, Izzy, Tai and Agumon.

"Garurumon!" Tai said as he, Izzy and Agumon ran up to the large wolf.

"How were you able to digivolve?" the lizard asked.

"I'm not quite sure." The wolf said.

"You know what I think? When RedVegiemon's punch cracked the control spire, we were freed from its power." Patamon said as everyone looked at the tower that looked worse for wear.

"It's certainly going to need a lot of glue." Hawkmon said.

"We should destroy the spire once and for all and who better to do the job than Digmon." Armadillomon said.

"Yeah." Cody said pulling out his D-3.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

Digmon used his Rock Cracking and started drilling away at the spire until it gave way, falling down to the ground with blue sparks around it and was completely destroyed, freeing all of the Vegiemon.

"Sorry, I forgot to yell 'timber." Digmon said.

"Whoa, did I get married while I was a sleep?" RedVegiemon aksed when he saw the rings.

"Oh, now I see how it works." Yolei said.

"May I inquire as to what you're talking about?" Hawkmon asked flapping over to her.

"The spire. It acted like an electricity rod. The Digimon Emperor set it up so that it powered the dark rings, making it possible for him to control all the digimon throughout the area." She said.

"Isn't that right, Izzy?" she asked the red head as he smiled at her.

"Yeah. I'm quite impressed with your theory, Yolei." He said making her smile.

"I wonder how many more control spires there are scattered around the Digital World?" Tai asked as Matt walked over to his side.

"Well, whatever the number is one thing we know for sure is they all have to be destroyed. Quite a tough mission for the new Digidestinds, don't cha think?" Matt asked with a smirk.

"Leave it to us. We can handle it." TK said.

"I guess someone should take the Gotsumon back to their homes now." Agumon said to Gatomon as she raised her paw.

"I'm all over it." she said.

"Come on, I'll lead the way." Tai said as he ran off with the Gotsumon followed along with Agumon.

"I'm right behind ya, big brother." Kari said as she and Gatomon followed them.

"Garurumon will stay here and protect you guys from the Emperor." Matt said as he rode the wolf over to the Gazimon.

"Garurumon!" the Gazimon cheered making the wolf chuckle.

**(Later…)**

It was sunset by the time we got back to the computer lab.

"I'm glad the Gotsumon can't stay with us anymore. Every time they touched my CDs, they scratched them." Yolei said.

"And they clogged the sink when they brushed their teeth." Cody put in.

"Hey everyone, I really think you should take a look at this." Izzy called from his place at the computer.

"Wow, what is that?" Yolei asked as we all gathered around him to see what was on the screen.

"I found it when I was examining your digivice, Yolei. It seems to be a map of the Digital World." He said as we saw the black, white and grey squares all over the screen.

"Do you see this white square? Well, it used to be black until we destroyed the control spire." He said pointing to the square.

"Unfortunately, there are a lot black squares left and they all have spires." Izzy said.

"Gee, Izzy. It's going to take a long time to turn all of those black squares into white ones." Cody said.

"And how do we know he won't build new spires?" I asked with a frown.

To be continued…


	6. Old Reliable

"Old Reliable"

**Here is the next chapter, I hope you all like it. Please enjoy and review. Happy holidays everybody!**

The day school was out so I was walking to the computer room to go to the Digital World, but stopped at the stairs that led out of the school when I saw Cody was walking down them with his school bag on.

"Hey, Cody." I called curiously making him stop and turn to face me.

"Oh, hi Daisuke. What's up?" he asked.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I'm going home. I've got kendo practise this afternoon." He said.

"Can't get out of it?" I asked.

"No, my grandfather is my teacher." He said.

Ah, so that makes sense.

It's a family commitment and he can't get out of it at all.

"All right then, I'll tell the others. Good luck." I said as he smiled and walked off.

"Hey Daisuke, what's going on?" a female voice asked making me turn around.

"Nothing really, Kari." I said.

"Oh, all right then. Come on; let's get to the computer lab." She said.

I nodded and followed her there, briefly wondering where TK was.

Half the time I can't go anywhere in the school without seeing those two together.

They were practically joined at the hip.

We made it to the computer lab and Kari opened the door to show that Yolei and TK were in there already, both at the computer.

Yeah, I knew it was too good to be true.

"What's going on?" Kari asked standing at his side as I walked up behind them to see what they were looking at.

"We just got a message from the Digital World. It's a distress call from one of the digimon." the child of Hope said.

"Who?" Kari asked.

"I'm not really sure." He said.

"I got it. The signal is coming from one of the black areas controlled by the digimon Emperor. And it's a lot further than any area we've been to." Yolei said.

"This should add to our frequent flier miles." Kari joked.

"According to this map, the Emperor's area is getting a lot bigger. I bet his ego is to." Yolei said.

"It won't be long until he has complete control over the entire Digital World." I said clenching my fists as I felt anger at the Emperor.

Really, how can someone be so cruel?

Doesn't he care that he's hurting all of these innocents?

"Then every single digimon is in danger." Kari said sadly holding her hand up to her mouth with a worried look in her eyes.

I looked over to her and felt terrible for the way she looked and wanted to comfort her, but why should I bother?

I had to comfort myself and it's time the Princess of Light learned that not everyone will fall to their knees to make her smile.

"All right, let's get moving." I said.

"But we have to wait for Cody to get here!" Upamon said making me turn to him as he sat on the desk.

"He's not coming. He has kendo." I said.

"One question; what's kendo?" Upamon asked.

"It's a sport where people fight with wooden swords." I explained with the cliff notes.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps made us all turn to the door.

"Oh boy, I knew Cody would show up!" Upamon cried happily.

"I don't think it's Cody." I said.

"Everybody hide!" Yolei cried as she, TK and Kari started running around with their digimon in their arms while I just lifted Upamon and Demiveemon up into my arms and sat on the chair with them in my lap.

Really, what's with the freak out?

The door was opened by a blue haired high schooler who smiled at everyone as he walked in, everyone stopping.

"It's Joe!" Kari and TK and happily.

"Hi guys." Joe said with a wave while Upamon sulked that it wasn't his partner.

"Wow, even though Tai told me about it, it's still strange seeing the digimon here in the real world." Joe said as he stood in front of us and TK stepped up beside him.

"This is Joe our old friend we told you about." The child of Hope said as I stood up, Demiveemon hopping out of my arms.

"Right, the doctor." I said.

"Would you mind taking a look at my tonsils for me?" Yolei asked as she hugged the frowning Poromon to her.

"Joe, this is Daisuke and Yolei. Joe's not really a doctor yet." Kari said.

"I'm glad you're here. We got a distress call from the Digital World." TK said.

"I know, it's from Gomamon." The bluenette said.

"So your digivice was triggered too? That's why you came." TK said.

"Candy!" we heard Demiveemon cheer as we all looked over to see the dragon was trying to get into the bag Joe was holding.

"Hey, these are supplies for emergencies." Joe chuckled as he lifted the bag up and Demiveemon jumped after it and I bit back a laugh at how cute it was.

"Do you plan on coming to the Digital World with us, Joe? We could really use your help." The child of Light smiled at him.

"Absolutely, I'm worried about Gomamon." Joe said as TK held up his green and white D-3.

"These are the digivices of the new Digidestinds. They're the only thing that can open the gate to the Digital World." He said.

"Yeah, Izzy gave me a heads up about them and he also told me all about this jerk that calls himself the Digimon Emperor." Joe said.

"All right, let's open the gate." Yolei said standing in front of the computer.

"Right." TK said as Demiveemon hopped back over to me.

We all held out our D-3s to open the gate, but were stopped when the door was slammed open.

"What about me?" Cody asked coming into the room.

"Cody! You made it! You made it! You made it! You made it! You made it! You made it!" Upamon cried as he jumped out of my arms and over to the young child of Knowledge.

"You're going to have to forgive him. He's hyperactive." Cody said turning to Joe as the gate beeped.

"Hey, the gate's open." I said.

"All right, come on. Let's goooo!" Yolei cheered striking a pose while I sweat dropped before we were all pulled into the gate and wound up in a frozen waste land.

"Great, I hate the cold." I shivered rubbing my arms since I didn't even have a sweater to keep me warm while Kari stood there like it was nothing.

She's insane.

"I'm sorry, but we weren't properly introduced while we took our trip. My name is-"Cody was cut off by Yolei.

"Hey, it's freezing! Let's get going already." She shivered as Joe pulled something out of his bag.

"Here, you can use one of these." Joe said handing a packet to the youngest of the team.

"They're hand warmers. Kari." Joe said handing her one next then the rest of us.

"Thanks a lot." She said.

"Boy, leave it to you. Good old reliable Joe." TK said happily.

"I watch all those survival shows on TV." Joe said as I ripped the packet open, but Yolei was struggling to open hers.

"It won't open!" she grunted as it slipped out of her hands.

She bent down to pick it up as it melted the snow away.

"Joe, look!" she cried making us look over to see a small bit of a digimon's face in the snow.

"Huh? Whoa, Goamon!" Joe gasped kneeling down.

He started digging and we all joined in to help free the seal from his frosty prision and when he was free, we saw that he had taken one nasty beating before he was nearly turned into a frozen digi treat.

"Gomamon, speak to me." Joe said.

The seal shook as he began to wake up, his green eyes barely open as he looked at his partner.

"Joe…" he groaned.

"What day of the week is it?" the 17 year old asked.

"It's Saturday." Gomamon guessed with a lazy grin.

"Actually, it's Thursday, but you never did know the day, so you're back to your old self." Joe said.

"I heard from Tentomon we can use that TV to contact you if we were in trouble." Gomamon said.

"Boy, it looks like you're going to use up my whole first aid kit." Joe said pulling said kit out.

"I always get misty eyed at happy reunions. I actually think I'm going to cry." Armadillomon said as Gatomon walked over to him.

"Don't, your tears will turn to icicles." She said as Joe petted Gomamon's cheek.

"You really look terrible, Gomamon. But I mean that in a nice way." The bluenette said.

"I picked a fight with the wrong guy. The Digimon Emperor." Gomamon said as Joe picked him up, then stood up next to me as we looked out to where a control tower was standing.

"He's built another control spire here too." I said.

"What's that?" Joe asked.

"It's the Digimon Emperor's secret weapon." Kari said.

"He hunts down digimon and puts these dark rings around them, turning them into his slaves. And the control spires supply the power to those rings." TK said.

"And no one can digivolve." Kari said sadly.

"Let's rip it down!" Veemon said pumping his arms.

"But we're gonna have to cross this ice if we hope to get close enough to destroy it." Kari said.

"Now I know what Matt means when he says I'm walking on thin ice." TK said.

I really don't think that's what he meant.

"Did ya bring any skates? We need six pairs." Yolei asked Joe while I ran over to the forest getting an idea, Veemon following me while Joe turned to the child of Love.

"Sorry, I'm all out." He laughed.

"Hey, Joe, do you have any rope?" I asked as Veemon rammed into one of the trees.

"Yeah." He said just as the tree my dragon hit fell to the ground.

The digimon all worked together to knock down the trees and cut off the branches as us humans used the rope Joe supplied to tie the logs together into a sled.

"Well, it's done." I sighed blowing my bangs out of my eyes.

"What a great sled." Yolei said as we stood back to admire our work.

"Now all we have to do is go for a ride." TK said as we looked at the digimon that had rope tied around them and to the sled.

"That's easy for you to say. We're pullin'." Armadillomon said.

"I'm no dog." Hawkmon said.

"Come on guys, we're counting on you." Cody said.

"OK." Patamon said as they all turned around, but still didn't look too happy about it.

Hey, I know how they feel.

I don't like getting a group of people falling on my back when we go home, but it happens all of the time.

"Now, mush!" I called as the others cheered when the digimon started pulling us along.

"Go Veemon!" I called.

"What a way to travel." Yolei smiled.

The icy winds were stinging my eyes though, so I reached up and pulled my goggles down to protect my eyes.

"Uh oh. We've got visitors." Patamon said when we got closer to the spire and saw these bear shaped snowmen that were lined up in front of it.

"Oh, look, snowmen. How cute." Yolei said.

"No, they're Frigimon, but what's that around their legs?" TK asked about the black things they had.

Well, gee, I don't know.

What other accessories have digimon been wearing nowadays while the spires are around?

Moron.

"Attack." I heard someone say and looked up to see the Emperor and some green caterpillar digimon were standing on a cliff overlooking as the Frigimon started punching the air, sending out blasts of ice at us.

We all yelled as we hung on to the sled as the digimon started swerving around to avoid getting hit, snow flying up in my face.

"I hate the cold." I shivered.

"Forget about the Frigimon. They're not very fast. We can outrun them. Our mission is to destroy the control spire, right? So it's better to keep going than to waste time fighting." Joe said.

"But they're attacking us!" Yolei cried.

"Joe's right, run past them." TK said.

We hung onto the sled as our digimon sped up and started running around the Frigimon as thy blasted at us again.

"All right!" Yolei cheered.

"We made it through." Kari smiled.

The Frigimon then started blasting at the hill that was in front of us and it started an avalanche.

I hate the cold.

Our digmon swerved the sled around to outrun the snow as it came crashing down towards us like a wave, but we were getting close to a canyon, all of us yelling as we got closer.

The digimon all picked up speed and jumped, everyone freaking out as we sailed through the air.

The digimon made it on the other side, but only half of the sled made it, the end half falling back.

We all cried out as we held onto the sled with our lives as the digimon worked hard to pull us up to safety.

With one hard pull, we made it, but they were slipping and sliding over to a lake that was on the other side, swerving so that the sled fell on its side, all of us falling off, but to our horror, Cody fell right into the icy water.

"CODY!" I yelled pushing the others off of me.

"I'll save him!" Gomamon said as he jumped down into the water after him, all of us watching in worry until the seal emerged from the water with the boy on his back.

Later on, we all ran off and found a cave to rest in, all of us getting a fire started as Cody shivered by it.

"Warmin' up yet?" Armadillomon asked as Joe held a cup out to the boy.

"Drink this herbal tea. It's 10% herbal and 90% tea." Joe said while the boy smiled at him.

"Thanks a lot Joe." Cody shivered while the rest of us sat watching with our digimon in our laps.

"Boy, that Joe really comes prepared." Yolei said with a smile.

"That's nothing. Wait until you see him during hay fever season." Kari said.

"We'll have to leave Cody here." TK said as we all nodded and I stood up.

"TK's right. I'll stay back here and take care of Cody." Joe said.

"Thanks Joe." TK said as the others stood and we all started walking away.

"I'm going too!" Cody cried making us stop and look at him and saw the determined look he had.

"My grandfather told me that if I rely on myself and try my hardest, then I won't let any of you down." He said.

"You're not letting us down." Kari said as we gave him a confused look.

"Besides, you'll need to conserve your strength." Joe said.

"That's right Cody. We got a long fight ahead and we'll need ya." Armadillomon said.

"I guess you're right. I'll wait here. Don't be gone long." Cody said to us.

"We'll be back soon." I said as we all turned and left them there.

We got the sled ready and got back on as our digimon pulled us along as we went.

We soon arrived to the spire and saw that the Frigimon were still guarding it.

"Time to get down to business. Veemon, let's do it." I said untying him and he jumped up, ready to go.

"Right!" he said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

The Frigimon blasted at Flamedramon, but he jumped up and dodged all of the attacks, then used his Fire Rockets to knock them all back.

"Flamedramon can handle the Frigimon by himself, so it's up to us to destroy the spire." TK said to the other two girls.

"OK, but I think we're going to have to do it from the sir." Kari said.

Good thing all three's digimon can fly.

"Got it." Yolei said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" they called.

"Gatomon armour digivolve too…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

"Patamon armour digivolve too…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Halsemon: the Wings of Love!"

Flamedramon kept the Frigimon busy while the three took to the sir and blasted at the spire, making it crumble down from the force of all the attacks.

The Frigimon all stopped their attacks as they pulled off their dark rings, confused about what was going on.

We all ran back and met up with Cody and Joe, then the group went back to where the TV was so that we could go back home.

"All right Gomamon, you're in charge here now." Joe said to the seal.

"Great, a frozen waste land. Just what I've always wanted." Gomamon said sarcastically.

"At least you'll have plenty of time to practise your jokes." Joe said crouching down to his partner.

"Very funny." The seal said.

"I guess we better be heading back home." TK said as Joe stood up properly and Cody faced him.

"Before we go, there's one thing I just have to finish." The kid said making us all look at him curiously.

"Oh really? What's that?" Joe asked.

"Our introduction. Hello, my name's Cody." He said with a polite bow making me give a crooked grin at that.

"I don't get it Cody. What's the big deal?" Yolei asked.

"My grandfather says that next to prune juice, manners are the most important thing a man can have." Cody explained.

"You know Cody reminds me an awful lot of Joe. Always honest and sticks to the rules." Kari said.

"I think he reminds me of Izzy. Just loaded with curiosity." TK said with a slight chuckle.

"Part Izzy and part me? That's a scary combination." Joe said with his arms crossed and a smile.

We all smiled at Cody as he blushed from the attention he was getting.

"He's got a split personality." Yolei joked.

We all went back through the portal to home, me getting everyone on my back yet again.

I really wish Joe was a real doctor so that he could check my back for any damage.

I might wind up having back problems in my early twenties because of this.

"I bet he'sh at home crying 'Mommy, thoshe mean kidsh broke another one of my spiresh. Whaaa!'" Demiveemon joked after we all got up and I smirked at that.

"The fight's not over yet." Kari said.

"Joe, will you come back and fight with us again?" Cody asked eagerly.

"Sure, who knows? Maybe I'll even find a digi egg of my own someday. But I have to watch my collateral." Joe said.

"I was wondering if you'd like to come over to my house some time. I think you'd like my grandfather and I know he'd like you." Cody said.

"Sure, I love prune juice." Joe said as Kari rushed over with a sweet smile and her hands clasped to her right cheek.

"Is it OK if I come over too? I would just love meeting your grandfather." She said.

I rolled my eyes at that as I picked up Demiveemon and made and exit, no one even noticing as I went.

To be contined…


	7. Family Picnic

"Family Picnic"

**Here's the next chapter. I hope you guys all enjoyed your holidays. Please review and enjoy!**

So in a surprising event, Cody called me and asked why I had just disappeared yesterday and said I missed out on Kari planning a picnic on Saturday in the Digital World.

I guess you could say I was…touched that someone noticed I left, but also wondered why Kari would want to have a picnic in a place that was overrun with dangers.

I decided to go and packed up a lunch and cooked some food to bring Friday night and placed them in the fried so that they could be eaten Saturday.

The school was easy to sneak into and Demiveemon was playing a game on my DSI as we waited for the others to show up and I was just checking out the news report and it was all about the Ken guy again.

I swear, I feel like I've met him before, but I just can't place it.

His voice was one thing, but also the eyes that looked dead and cruel.

I was interrupted from my thought by the door opening and turned to see the others just arrived with their own bags filled with food.

"Daisuke, you made it." Kari said.

"How did you get in here?" Yolei asked.

"I just asked the janitor to let me saying the computer club was having a meeting and he let me in." I said.

"So we didn't have to sneak in?" TK asked while Yolei gave him a pointed look.

"Nope." Demiveemon chirped as he continued playing his game.

The blonde laughed nervously as the child of Love walked over to my computer and I got up to let her open up the portal.

"All right, I got us in. Am I the best or what?" she asked as she pointed a finger in the air, but then the door was opened making us all turn to see a pink haired teenager had found us.

"I'm sorry, but…are you supposed to be here?" she asked in a sweet voice as Yolei, Cody and their partners all freaked out.

"Mimi!" TK, Kari, Gatomon and Patamon said making us new Digidestinds look at them in surprise.

"Mimi?" we asked.

"Um, TK? Kari?" Mimi asked as she walked into the room.

"Yep!" the children of Hope and Light chirped.

"Daisuke, Yolei, Cody. I want you to meet someone. This is our friend Mimi. She's one of the original Digidestinds who moved to America." TK explained.

"Hi Mimi, Sora told us all about you." Yolei said looking at her in admiration like how I used to look at Tai.

"When I spoke to her, she told me all about you too." The pink haired girl smiled.

"Hello Mimi, my name's Daisuke and this is Demiveemon." I said as my dragon hopped onto my shoulder after he put away my DSI.

"Yeah, she definitely told me about you." She said making me tilt my head in confusion.

"Gatomon, Patamon. How have you been?" she asked the two digimon.

"Other than being stuffed in a knapsack like a wet towel, fine." The white cat said.

"It's so good to see you. When did you get back?" Patamon asked.

"Just this morning. I was passing by the school and just had to take a look for old time's sake. I walked in the front gate. Someone left it open." Mimi said.

"That was Daisuke. She got here before us and asked the janitor to let us in." TK explained.

"Huh?" Mimi asked.

"We all decided to go on a nice Saturday picnic in the Digital World." The blonde continued with a smile.

"Digital World?" Mimi asked.

"Maybe Mimi can come with us." Yolei suggested.

"I haven't been there in so long. Do you think it would be OK?" the pinkette asked.

"Of course!" Yolei cheered.

"Yolei, we didn't bring enough sodas for an extra person." TK pointed out making her pout.

"Oh no." she said.

"It's OK. She can have my soda." Cody said.

"And mine." Kari said.

"Perfecto! Now let's go." Yolei said.

"That's great. Now the rest of us won't have anything to drink." TK said making me sigh and roll my eyes as I pulled out my D-3.

"Everyone can keep their own sodas because I brought an extra one. Mimi can have it. Now let's go." I said as we were all pulled into the gate.

We were in a peaceful forested area, the air around us clear and sweet smelling.

"Hey, take a look around. There's no control spires in sight." Veemon said.

"How cool. I'm back. The Digital World hasn't changed." Mimi said as she looked around the area with a smile.

We all started walking, searching for the perfect place to stop and eat while Yolei told Mimi all about the Digimon Emperor.

"Digimon Emperor?" she asked.

"Yeah, he builds these control spires to take over the Digital World. They act like a receiver to the dark rings. When we break the spires, the rings don't work anymore and free the slaves." Yolei said.

"So if there are no control spires, are we safe?" Mimi asked.

"That's why we picked this spot for our picnic." Yolei said.

"Gee, we never would have thought about having a picnic here in the old days because we'd be too worried about giant digital ants." Mimi said.

"So far, every time we've come here it's been to destroy a control spire, but since it's Saturday, we thought we'd just come here to have some fun." Yolei said.

"We should pick out a spot around here to lay out the picnic blanket and dish out the food." Cody said as I looked at the ground with a frown seeing the grass sparkle with dew.

"Sounds great." TK said.

"No way. It's way too early for lunch. Let's keep walking." I said as the others groaned.

"I am a little hungry." Kari mused making me roll my eyes.

What, did she expect me to roll over and just agree to let them all stop and eat just because of her?

I swear, I think she might be spoiled by the others.

"The ground is still too wet. Let's just keep walking until the sun dries it up." I said.

I glanced behind me and saw that Kari had a surprised look, like she had expected me to actually tell everyone to stop just because of her.

The others seemed just as surprised, except for Mimi; she looked like she didn't care if we continued on for a while.

"But we're hungry!" Yolei whined.

"Then pull out something to snack on while we walk." I said feeling my temples throb as a headache formed.

"But then it'll ruin my appetite." She said as I clenched my fists.

"Not if you just have an apple or granola bar." I said struggling to keep my annoyance out of my voice.

"But I didn't bring any of those." She said and I opened up my bag, pulling out my mp3 and turned it on, putting the headphones on to block out her voice with "Jumpstart" by These Kids Wear Crowns.

"Did she just do that? I can't believe she just did that." Yolei said sounding annoyed and insulted while the others laughed and I turned the volume up.

I felt a tug on my bag and saw Veemon had pulled my DSI back out and was continuing with his game, face screwed up in concentration.

I smiled at him and shook my head in amusement as we all kept walking for about half an hour, the others all talking behind me.

Finally, I pushed my headphones off and bent down to feel the grass, the others stopping behind me.

"All right, we can roll out the mats here." I said.

"Finally." Yolei groaned as everyone got to work setting the blanket out and we all took out our food, Veemon happily taking one of my containers out of my hands and dug into the Caesar and grilled chicken salad I made.

"Try to not to choke." Gatomon said with a grimace.

"But it's really good. I love all of Dai's cooking." He said.

"It can't be that good." Gatomon said only to have a chicken strip shoved in her mouth.

I bit back a laugh as I ate the BLT sandwich I made when she swallowed the chicken and got a dazed look on her face, Veemon giving her a smug look.

"If ya think that's good, you should try her brownies." He said as the cat shared the salad with him.

"I brought these from my family's convenience store. You want some?" Yolei asked holding a wrapped food item.

"Ah, is that what I think it is? A chocolate covered rice ball? I haven't had one since…I was a kid. I just love 'em!" Mimi gushed with stars in her eyes, hands clasped in front of her and a flushed look on her face as she smiled.

Everyone laughed as she eagerly tore off the wrapping and ate the rice ball.

"What'll you have?" Yolei asked her own partner.

"I'll have whatever Armadillomon is having." Hawkmon said looking over to the duo of Knowledge as the armadillo stuffed his face with seaweed covered rice and vegies.

"He's eating sushi." Yolei said.

"Excellent. I'll have one sushi please." Hawkmon said holding up a wing.

"Comin' right up." Armadillomon said with a nod and reared his arm back in a baseball throw making Cody jump.

"No Armadillomon! Never throw food!" he said but the roll was thrown anyway, rolling away from us as Hawkmon got up and started chasing after it.

"Oh, come back little sushi!" he called as Yolei got up and chased after him.

"Wait, Hawkmon, come back. It's just a California roll." She called.

"Yes, but it's rolling all the way back to California." He retorted as they got further away, Mimi watching in worry.

"I'm going to go after them. I'll be back soon." She said as she stood off and went off after them.

A while later, they still hadn't come back and I was starting to worry about them when they hadn't come back.

We all started searching around for them, calling out their names.

"Hawkmon! Mimi! Yolei! Where are you?" I called.

"Hawkmon! Mimi! Yolei! Where are you?" the others all repeated.

I was about to call for them again, but was stopped by my D-3 beeping, so I pulled it out of my pocket.

"I think it's from Yolei, but the signal's kind of weak." I said as the rest all gathered around me to see a dot beeping and there was another one further off, fading out.

The first dot was our group, the other being Yolei, Hawkmon and Mimi.

"They must be nearby. But in what direction?" TK looking around.

"The Digimon Emperor must be blocking the signal." Cody said as we all groaned.

"They couldn't be that far away." I said as I started walking, the suddenly the ground under me move and I fell.

"DAISUKE!" everyone called.

I yelled as I fell down into the ground, landing on a pile of garbage.

I groaned as I got up, disgusted and started wiping the trash off of me as I looked around me and saw that there was a whole other world down here that looked like it was night time.

Who would've thought?

I looked around and gasped at the sight of the control spire while the others all jumped down, landing in the trash pile too.

"Ew, who left this here?" Kari asked as she and the others all got up out of the pile.

"You think this is the place digimon throw away their garbage?" Cody asked.

I let a small grin show on my face before I gasped when my D-3 beeped again.

I looked at it and heard an explosion, looking to where the spire was and saw it tumble down.

"Looks like Yolei took care of the control spire." I said as everyone saw where I was looking cheered.

"Kari!"

"TK!"

We all looked to see these frogs and tadpole digimon running over smiling.

"Look, it's the Gekomon and Otamamon." Patamon said.

"Welcome back." Gekomon1 said.

"It's nice to see you again." Otamamon1 said.

"Thanks. Have you seen Mimi around here or another human girl with a Hawkmon?" Kari asked them.

"They went that way!" three Gekomon said pointing to the place where the control spire once was.

"Let's go." Cody said as we all started heading off in that direction, the large group of digimon following us.

We soon found the two girls with Hawkmon and another digimon that looked like a giant cactus.

"Yolei, Hawkmon, we're over here!" Veemon cheered.

The Gekomon and Otamamon all crowded around the pink haired girl.

"Mimi." The cactus digimon said.

"Togemon?" Mimi asked.

"I'll protect this area now. You can count on me." Togemon said making Mimi smile and pat her red gloved hand, meaning that this was her partner.

"I've always counted on you." She said resting her head on her partner.

"Goodbye Togemon!" we all said.

"Aw, don't make me cry. My eyes hurt too much." Togemon said rubbing the back of her head.

We all went back to home when the sun started to go down, and I was on the bottom of the dog pile yet again.

Man, I better not have any problems with my back.

I have a big soccer game coming up next weekend and if I can't play, coach will freak out.

We walked out of the school to wave off Mimi as she went back to the airport with her parents.

"Bye Mimi!" we said.

"Goodbye everyone. Thanks for a great picnic. Bye." She said waving to us as we started to go home.

"Oh, Mimi, I almost forgot." Yolei said stopping.

"I wanted to say when I get older I wanna be just like you!" she called to the pinkette who looked surprised by the confession.

She smiled and covered her mouth, looking like she was trying to hide her touched look before she looked back at the lavender haired girl and pointed at her.

"Perfecto." She said making the others all laugh.

I slipped away from them and started off for home, ready to take a shower after falling into the garbage that was left from the Roachmon brothers and possibly ice my back.

From now on, we are going through that stupid gate one at a time.

To be continued


	8. Guardian Angel

"Guardian Angel"

**I want to say sorry if it seems like I'm bashing on Kari, but Daisuke's hurt over what she and Tai did and since he isn't around a lot, Kari's mostly the prime subject of her anger and pain. Hope you guys like it. Please enjoy and review.**

We were all in the Digital World again, our armour digimon all using their attacks at once to take down a control spire and watched as it tumbled down.

Sora, Matt and Tai were with us, Izzy monitoring how many spires we all took out from the computer lab.

After we were done, we went back to the lab to meet with Izzy and he told us the children of Courage, Love and Friendship's partners were all moving on to their next areas to take down more spires.

"There's still one more control spire to destroy today." Izzy said turning to us.

"Maybe Greymon can get that one too." Matt said.

"I don't think he can. It looks like he's too far from that area." Tai said.

"Tai's right." Izzy said.

"I guess we'll just have to go then." I said making Yolei and Cody nod.

The 10 of us, the new team and our partners, went through the portal and wound up in a city filled with tall buildings made of metal.

These robots called Gardromon with dark rings on them spotted us and started firing missiles at us, calling us intruders.

Digmon used his Gold Rush to destroy the rings, then Pegasusmon took to the sky to destroy more with his Star Shower, but more Gardomon just kept coming as Flamedramon used his Fire Rocket.

"There must a hundred of them." I said with sweat trickling down my temple.

"I think now is a good time to go back to our world so we can come up with a new plan." TK said nervously as we watched the army stomping over.

"TK's right. We can talk to Izzy." Yolei said as she was on Halsemon's back in the air.

"Let's go, now!" I called as Flamedramon and Digmon returned to their Rookie forms and we were all running for the TV to get back to our world.

We ran into what looked like an alley and Yolei held her D-3 up to open the gate, I stood at the side as I waited for everyone to go in first, Kari and Gatomon being at the very back of the group.

"Daisuke, come on." TK said grabbing my arm.

"But Kari's-"I was cut off by him holding up his D-3 and we were pulled through, Kari's face the last thing I saw before we all fell through the gate and wound up in the computer room, landing on the floor with TK and our partners on top of me.

"Ouch! Say, shouldn't we put pillows here if we're gonna keep doing this?" Yolei asked.

"Guys, I saw that the TV was blown up as we came through so we can't go back." Patamon said as we all sat up properly.

I looked around the group, worried when I saw two members were missing.

"Where are Kari and Gatomon?" I asked feeling a sense of dread.

"They're trapped in the Digital World!" Cody gasped looking at the computer.

Yolei quickly got up on the chair and started typing on the keyboard while I felt sick to my stomach with worry.

"The gate to that area is closed. We can't get to her." Yolei said.

"TK, you should have let me wait for her! I was staying back to make sure everyone got in first. Why did you have to pull me through?" I yelled at him.

"Daisuke, calm down. There's no need to be upset." Cody said.

"One of our teammates is stuck in an area filled with an army of evil slaves and when Tai finds out he's gonna go ballistic and you say there's no need for me to freak out?" I asked clenching my fists so hard I was sure my nails were cutting my skin.

"Daisuke's right. I should have been looking out for her." TK said sighing as a sad look was on his face.

I looked at him and felt myself calming down from the sight.

He looked completely depressed and ashamed of himself; I couldn't stay mad at him.

"S-sorry."I said looking away.

"Hey, guys. It's am e-mail from Kari." Yolei said making us all look at her in surprise.

"It says 'Don't worry, I'm alright. And I'm sorry if any words are misspelled.

Sincerely, Kari.'" She read.

"Yolei, I've got an idea." TK said pushing her out of the way so that he could use the computer.

"If I can find an area close to the one she's in, then I can reach her." He said as the computer beeped.

"Got it!" he said as I came to a decision.

"I'll be back soon." He said.

"I'm going too." Patamon said.

"Hold it, hot shot." I said pulling him back.

"It's not safe to go alone. You're gonna need backup. I'm coming with you." I said making him look at me before he nodded.

"But what are we supposed to tell your families?" Yolei asked.

"Tell Tai to deal with it." I said as TK and I held out our D-3s and were pulled right into the gate, our digimon with us.

The four of us landed in an area that looked like a desert, only it wasn't so hot since he sun was setting turning the sky purple and pink.

"Where should we go?" TK asked looking around.

I pulled out my D-3 and saw a pink dot beeping on the screen to the west.

"I'd say that way is our safe bet." I said as we started walking off to where the faded signal was coming from.

We started walking for a short while, no one saying anything as we went, looking up ahead for the city or any slaves of the Emperor.

"Hey Daisuke, there's something I've been meaning to ask you for a while now." TK said suddenly.

"And what would that be?" I asked.

"How long have you known Kari and Tai?" he asked making me stop.

"Why do you want to know?" I asked and I'm sure if I were a cat or something that my hackles would have risen.

"Kari's told me before that you two have been friends for years and you would always follow her and Tai around, but one day you just stopped. Why was that?" he asked stopping a few feet from me as he turned to face me.

"Oh, sure. I'm the bad guy in this situation?" I asked glaring at him.

"I didn't say that. I just wanna know why you stopped hanging out with them and why you're so different from what Kari told me before. She said you used to be so sweet and friendly, but now…you just seem so cold." He said with a frown.

My hand gripped my D-3 tightly as I felt my temper rising again.

After a few seconds passed with me not saying anything, he waked closer to me.

"Why did things change between you guys? What happened?" he asked.

I scoffed instead of yelling like I wanted and looked up at him, tears stinging in my eyes, but I held them back as I stared into his azure eyes.

"You wanna know the truth? They abandoned me. OK, that's it." I said as I started walking again.

"What do you mean they abandoned you?" he asked.

"Kari and Tai were the only people I ever trusted enough to be my friends. I was a really shy kid and had a hard time making friends. All of the girls didn't want to hang out with me because I dressed like a boy and called me a freak. Kari was the first one to ever talk to me and we became friends. After that, she introduced me to Tai and I started to really care for them. They were like a sister and brother to me." I said stopping as I hung my head tears now falling from my eyes, dripping off my chin and onto the sand.

TK, Veemon and Patamon all stayed quiet as they listened to me.

"I met them when I was only three and they were a big part of my life. Then one day, four years ago, I met up with them both after I hadn't seen them for a few days and they…were completely different. I could sense it. something was differnet about them. I felt so awkward around them when I tried to talk to them. When I went with my sister to their apartment to walk to school, Mrs. Kamiya said they left without me. When we got to the school, I saw that Kari was hanging out with a group of girls that never liked me and I felt…I just felt so…betrayed. When I tried to talk to her, she told me she was busy with them and that we would talk later. I went to look for Tai to talk to him, but he was too busy with other kids his own age and Sora. Every time I tried to talk to them or spend time with them, they pushed me away and said they'd get back to me, but they never did. I felt like I was drowning. After a while, I just gave up trying to talk to them all together. That's when I changed. I never waned to feel that same pain of losing friends ever again, so…" I trailed off as my bangs covered my face as I cried, my shoulders trembling.

"You started pushing people away so they didn't get close to you." TK said softly.

I nodded my head as I wiped the tears away.

I gasped when something landed on my head gently and the sand crunched as TK and Veemon both came up beside me.

Patamon peered down at me from his place on my head.

"But you don't have to do that. I mean, you never did that with Veemon." The hamster-bat said.

"He's the only exception I'll make." I said looking down at my partner as he smiled sadly up at me and then hugged my leg.

"Daisuke, can't you at least try with us?" TK asked as he placed a hand on my shoulder making me look up at him.

He was smiling softly at me as Patamon flapped off of my head and sat on the child of Hope's.

"We want to be your friends, but you gotta give us the chance." The blonde continued.

I looked away unsure of what to do or say.

"TK, what's the thing you're scared of more than anything in the world?" I asked my voice low.

He was silent for a while and I looked up at him from under my eyelashes seeing the pain, anger and fear flickering in his eyes.

"I'm scared of losing Patamon and my brother to evil." He said.

"See? That's one fear everyone has. Loosing someone they love forever and being left alone. It happened to me already and I never want to feel that pain ever again." I said pulling away from him.

"Why didn't you ever talk to Tai and Kari about this when the new team was formed?" he asked.

"Because I couldn't! I tried…but I just couldn't." I said wrapping my hands around my throat.

"Whenever I tried, I felt like my lungs were being filled up with water…and I just couldn't get the words to come out. It's like whenever I try to talk to them about this, my entire body shuts down and keeps me from saying anything. I've never had the courage to say any of this to anyone but you three." I said turning to look at them with a pitiful smile.

"Kind of pathetic for the new child of Courage, huh?" I asked.

TK shook his head as he smiled.

"Just because you're scared of something, it doesn't mean you're pathetic. You're stronger than you even know." He said as felt a warmth swell in my chest.

I gave a dry chuckle as I brushed my bangs back and gave a rare small smile.

"I guess I can try out the friendship thing." I said making him smile and chuckle too.

"Can we get going now? The sun's starting to go down." Patamon pointed out.

"Yeah, we still need to find Kari and Gatomon." Veemon said.

"One more thing though." I said before we started.

"Don't tell Kari and Tai about this. I want to be the one to do it." I said.

TK smiled and nodded in understanding.

"Of course." He said.

The four of us started walking again until we saw the city up ahead of us, the city in a dome.

"There's the city. Looks like one of those things you shake and starts snowing." TK said.

"You mean a snow globe?" I asked seeing that he was right.

"Yeah, those things. So who gets Kari?" he asked.

"Both of us. It's safer that way." I said as he nodded.

We both started walking down the dunes.

"So, how do you and your sister handle stuff at home? You normally disappear as soona s we get back from the Digital World. Do you have a lot of chores to do?" he asked.

"Not really. We split them up or use a coin to decide who does the ones we both hate. I always use a trick coin though." I said making him chuckle as I smirked.

"I used to do that to Matt. That's how I got all of my baseball cards, video games and his old guitar." He said.

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Yeah. He never even knew about it." he said as we both laughed.

"TK and Daisuke look like they could be really good friends." I heard Patamon say.

"You guys should come over sometime to taste her cooking. You'll love it." Veemon said.

"She cooks?" the hamster-bat asked.

"Yep all the time. I helped her make brownies for the picnic. Gatomon and I ate them all, though." My dragon chuckled.

The sun was now down as we hid behind a dune as we stared at the entrance.

"There's one guard at the door." I whispered.

"We're gonna have to take him out on the first attack otherwise he'll call for reinforcements." TK whispered back.

"Not a problem. Veemon, you ready to go for it?" I asked him with a smile as he returned it.

"You bet. Let's do it." he said.

"Digi Armour-"

"What a minute!" Patamon said stopping me.

"I'll do it." he said as we looked at him.

"There aren't any control spires in this area, right?" he asked confusing me.

"Well, just the one inside the dome." TK said.

"But we're outside." The hamster-bat chirped.

"Yeah, that's right. That means you can digivolve." TK smiled shocking Veemon and I at that sudden announcement.

I wonder what he'll turn into.

"Then go for it." TK said holding his green and white D-3.

"All right." Patamon nodded as he was covered in white light.

"Patamon digivolve too…ANGEMON!"

My jaw literally dropped open, just like my dragon's did at the sight of the handsome angel that stood there in front of us.

"Angemon, I haven't seen you in a while." TK greeted.

"Angemon?" I asked.

"Hey there big guy." Veemon said as the angel smiled down at us.

Angemon spread his pure white wings and flew off to where Gardromon was, twirling his Angel Rod and then threw it over to the robot, hitting his chest plate where the ring was and destroyed it.

"I nailed it." Angemon said as he landed beside him, catching his Angel Rod as TK, Veemon and I ran over to the door.

Angemon punched the door, creating an opening as the two metal doors swung open, the angel walking into the dome and turned back to Patamon.

"You know those control spires really ruin my day." He said with a frown.

"You did great, Patamon." TK said.

"So besides armour digivolving, Patamon can digivolve to Angemon? What about Gatomon?" I asked.

"She can digivolve to Angewomon." TK said.

"Wow, Angemon and Angewomon? Maybe you and Kari were meant to be best friends. Guess that means someone else is supposed to be mine." I said thoughtfully.

"Hey, Veemon, do you think you know what your normal Champion form is?" I asked my partner.

"I don't know. I thought Flamedramon was the only thing I could digivolve into." He said as I nodded to him.

"DIGI ARMOUR DIGIVOLVE!" TK and I called.

"Veemon digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

"Patamon digivolve too…Pegesusmon: Flying Hope!"

TK got up on Pegasusmon,s back as the Gardromon started coming after us, Flamedramon using his Fire Rocket on the first row of Gardromon that came after us.

"Daisuke, over here!" Flamedramon called as he jumped over the robots as the duo of Hope flew over.

"I'm human. I can't move like that." I called making him jump back over to me, grabbing me and doing a massive jump to follow TK as he got Kari's signal.

I hung onto my dragon as we soared over to buildings, amazed, but then gasped when I caught the sight of white and pink.

I looked again and saw Kari and Nefertimon.

The Gardromon fired their missiles at her and they fell to the ground, Nefertimon turning back into Gatomon.

Flamedramon put me down as he and Pegasusmon both used their Aquiss Beam and Fire Rocket on the Gardromon as I ran over when the duo of Light turned to look at us.

"Hey Daisuke! TK! You guys are my heroes!" she called with a smile when Flamedramon and I stood beside her.

Pegasusmon destroyed another ring on the last Gardromon that was still a slave and we were free to go.

"We better get going." I said as we started to run, but were stopped when an android appeared.

"Andromon!" Kari called with a smile.

"I am Andromon. I have one mission. Seek out my enemies and destroy them with my Lightning Blade." He said confusing Kari.

"He's got a dark ring. Andromon?" she called out sadly.

"I am programed to destroy the enemy. You are the enemy. I will destroy you." He said.

"Andromon, don't you remember us? We're your friends." Kari said stepping forward and I felt worried about her.

"Kari, the ring's blocking his memory. Flamedramon, get the ring off." I said as Flamedramon was covered in flames and charged Andromon, but he used his Lightning Blade, knocking Flamedramon back and transformed him back into Veemon.

I gasped as I ran over and caught him, the momentum sending me back to the ground.

"V, are you OK?" I asked as Pegasusmon dropped TK off with us.

"You're kneeling on my tail." Veemon groaned as I saw my knee was on it and got up.

Pegasusmon used his Star Shower on Andromon, but the android used his Lightning Blade to hit him, transforming him back to Patamon as he fell back to TK, who caught him.

"I'll have two cheese burgers and a large order of fries." Patamon groaned.

"That didn't work. So what now?" I asked.

"Andromon, don' you remember how we fought together side by side?" Kari asked stepping in front of us, still trying to reason with him.

"Kari, we have to get out of here. We don't even know if it's the same Andromon." TK said.

"I'm sure that it's him." She said.

"Yeah, but even if it is, he's under the control of the Digimon Emperor. He can't even hear your voice." He said as the android stalked closer to us.

"You don't know that." She said with a frown and clenched fist.

"As much as I like this little source of information, he's heading right for us." I said pushing my way in between them as Andromon's red eyes focused on me.

He then stopped walking.

"Let's go!" Gatomon called as she, Veemon and Patamon charged at him just as a red bema shot from the sky and hit him, the digimon all knocking him back.

"Yeah!" Patamon and Veemon cheered.

"Here comes help now." Gatomon said as we looked up to see Halsemon and Yolei.

"I'm glad we're not too late." Halsemon said as the ground cracked and Digmon burst through.

"Hi guys. I thought since I was here, I'd build this city a subway system." He said.

Andromon then started to get back up from the ground.

"Hold still you pile of scrap metal." Digmon said as he sent his Gold Rush at him, but they just bounced off.

"Hey, that comment about scrap metal was just a joke." Digmon said a little worried.

"Hey, Kari, are you OK?" Tai asked as he and Cody finally caught up and ran over to us.

"Yeah, but Tai, it's Andromon." She said.

"Andromon, slow down. It's me, Tai." He said stepping up to the digimon.

"Tai who?" Andromon asked as he inspected him.

"Oh, Tai." He said as the dark ring crackled with sparks.

Andromon yelled and started swinging his arms around in pain, like he was fighting the control.

"Kari, look out!" I yelled as he made his way over to the brunette.

They just stared at each other in a tense silence before Andromon picked her up, raising her above his head, making us all jump up in fear for her.

"Hey, you put her down now!" Gatomon demanded.

"Do you remember me?" Kari asked.

"I am trying." Andromon said.

"Yes." He said after a few seconds of studying her face.

"We all took a picture together." She said as her eyes shimmered over with tears.

A tear fell from her eye and hit Andromon in his red eye. **(This is like BurningGreymon and Tommy. Tell me you don't think those two scenes are similar.)**

"A picture." He said as Kari's pink and white D-3 fell from her belt and hit his face plate, pink light flooding from it as it bounced off of him and fell to the ground.

They were covered in a bright, large pillar of pink light as we all covered our eyes from it.

"Face…from long ago. Digidestinds. I love jigsaw puzzles. Now I see the complete picture." Andromon said as his eyes returned to normal and gently set Kari back down.

"Kari, I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused." He said as he reached up to his neck and destroyed the ring.

"Andromon!" she smiled as he returned it and nodded.

"That control spire is responsible for all this. Well, no more." He said turning to the spire and shot off these missiles at it and destroyed it and freeing the rest of the Gardromon that were around the city.

"Andromon, are all of these Gardromon going to stay broken forever?" Kari asked him.

"No, they're programs were rewritten by the Digimon Emperor. They just need to be reprogrammed. Watch." He said as he walked up to one of them and these wires went from his arm and attached themselves to the Gardromon.

"Actually, once I reprogram Gardromon, I'll stay here to protect them in case the Digimon Emperor returns." Andromon said as he unattached the wires.

"I feel as fresh as a daisy." Gardromon said pumping his arms.

"Come on guys, let's go home." I said as we all found the gate and went through it.

Everyone fell on top of me again and we saw a certain red head standing there with his arms crossed and an annoyed look on his face.

"Izzy, were you waiting this whole time?" Tai asked as we all got up to see him just sitting there on a chair, one leg crossed.

"Shh. Let's go." He whispered as we all followed him out of the school so we weren't caught by the janitor.

"Matt just called and told me what had happened with Kari." Izzy said frowning as we all walked behind him.

"And I'm really upset that you guys have left me out of the loop. Cody called Tai for help and Tai called Matt, but no one ever calls me until the adventure is all over with." He ranted as Yolei, TK, Cody and I all looked away nervously, even though he wasn't facing us.

"Come on Izzy, don't be like that. There was just no time to call you. You know you're a big part of the team." Tai said making the red head stop and quickly turn to face him.

"That's right! And as a team member, I expect to be treated with the same respect I give to all of you. I may not be as strong as you and Matt, but I've gotten us out of just as many jams with my particular skills." Izzy said as we all stood listening to him.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you." Tai said making him smile.

"Now that's what I call respect. OK, I forgive you." He said.

"Wow, that was easy." Tai said stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, I almost forgot the reason I came here. I examined the new digivces and determined that they have three different settings." Izzy said as our D-3s all beeped and we pulled them out to look them over.

"Digital, detect and discover. Maybe we should call them D-3s from now on." He said.

Dude, I was calling them that from the beginning.

I wonder why though?

"Prodigeous little devices, aren't they?" he asked.

"I had a lot of help with the research from my friend Willis in America. Maybe you guys will meet him someday. (Why did I never catch that?) Anyway, I think the D-3s might have sent a message to Andromon's memory banks that made him-"

"Please finish talking after we eat." Demiveemon whined making me blanch and laugh nervously as my cheeks burned in embarrassment.

"We forgot about dinner." I said.

"That's right. Our parents are waiting for us. The foods probably cold and soggy by now. Of course, for my mom, that's an improvement. Let's go!" Tai said as we all started running to get home.


	9. Ken's Secret

"Ken's Secret"

**Here is the next chapter everyone, I hope you like it. By the way, the names of the boys on the soccer team, they're all made up. I don't know what their names are, so I just made them up and used names I like. Please enjoy and review.**

Today the guys and I were practising for the big game on Sunday.

Takeshi bounced the ball off his chest and was about to kick it into the net, but I did a sliding blocking, knocking him off his feet and the ball rolled away off of the field.

I looked over and saw the ball roll over to where TK, Kari, Cody, Yolei and Tai were cheering, the teenager stopping the ball with his foot.

"You walk much, Daisuke?" he teased making me stick my tongue out at him before Rei came over and gave me a hand up.

We all went back to practising until the sun started to go down and then coach called us over to talk.

"All right team, hustle in, let's go." Coach Yamaki called.

"Now quiet down, I've got an announcement to make. All right. Our first scrimmage is this Sunday against last year's number one team in the league." Yamaki said shocking all of us.

"That's the team with that brainac kid." Kai said.

"He's good at soccer, sports. He's good at everything." Satoshi said.

"Hey, hey! Watch the name calling. He's Ken Ichijouji." Yamaki said.

After practise, I met up with the digi team and Yolei was checking his stats out on the computer.

"Captain of his soccer team, Ken Ichijouji led his team to victory last season by scoring a record setting, 45 goals!" Yolei said making us all gasp in amazement.

"Whoa, this kid may even be better than I am." Tai said.

"Told ya." I whispered to TK and he bit back a giggle.

"I bet he could be in the Olympics if he wanted to." Cody said.

"You think you can beat him?" Kari asked me.

"Well, it's not about beating him; it's about going up against one of the best teams around." I said feeling nervous and excited all at once.

"It'd be great to just play against someone who can give me a challenge and really push me to my limits." I said making Tai smile and shake his head.

"_Oh, Daisuke!"_ Yolei sang as she stood up and grasped my hands making me look at her in shock and confusion.

"When you see Ken on the soccer field, will you get his autograph for me?" she asked smiling.

"_Yolei and Ken sitting in a tree_

_K-I-S-S-I-N-G."_ Cody sang.

"Hey, Cody, watch it! Besides, I didn't say I wanted to kiss him. Duh! I just wanna marry him." Yolei said with some serious attitude.

"Oh." Cody said.

"If you wanna meet him, ask for his autograph yourself." I advised making her anger fade away into a thoughtful expression.

"Oh, I guess I could do that." She said.

"Let's all go to the game and you can ask him then." Kari said.

Yeah, 'cause Ken is the only reason you guys want to go.

**(At Home…)**

"Hey, can I come to the game too, Dai?" Demiveemon asked when we were in my room.

"Of course you can." I said bending down to smile at him.

He cheered at that when the doorbell went off.

I walked out and went over to the door and opened it up only to meet two annoyed azure eyes that soon turned surprised and relieved.

"M-Matt? What're you doing here?" I asked feeling my cheeks heat up.

"Your sister blackmailed me into going on a date with her." He grumbled.

"A date? What? How was she able to do that?" I asked taking a small bit of pleasure out of the fact that he didn't want to go out with her.

"When you and TK were in the Digital World getting Kari, I came over here and told your sister that you two were studying at his place and she knew I was lying." He said.

"Were you blinking a lot?" I asked.

"No!" he said as he blinked and I gave him a pointed look.

"Just stay right here for minute." I said closing the door.

"JUN!" I yelled and soon enough her head popped out of her room.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Did you blackmail Matt into going out with you?" I asked with my arms crossed.

She giggled as she nearly frolicked over to me like a lovesick pixie.

"Yep. I didn't know having a younger sister would have great benefits." She said.

"Well, the date's cancelled. Matt was telling the truth. I was working with something with his brother." I said.

"What? But I made reservations at Morialli's." she whined.

"Call and cancel. Matt doesn't have to go out with you and if you don't do it, then I'll-"

"What? Exactly what will you do, dear sister?" Jun asked as she frowned and crossed her arms.

"I'll tell Mom you skipped school on Friday to go to the mall with Chizuru." I said making her grimace.

"Oh, fine." She pouted before she stormed off to her room.

I rolled my eyes again when she slammed the door behind her.

I hope I don't get that dramatic when I'm older.

I turned back to the door and opened it up to show Matt still waiting there.

"You're free to go." I said making him sigh in relief.

"You're a life saver." He said.

"Right. Bye." I said closing the door, hoping he hadn't seen my red cheeks.

Seriously, what is going on with me?

(Sunday…)

It was a nice warm, sunny day as the parents and students started showing up to watch the game between Odaiba and Tamachi.

My team and I were just stretching out for the game and I looked up to see my friends were all sitting in the bleachers with their digimon, except Kari was holding Demiveemon while Gatomon and Patamon stayed at their homes.

To my surprise, Matt was also here.

I guess TK asked him to come too.

"Good luck, Daisuke." Kari called.

"Don't forget to hug Ken." Yolei called pulling Poromon's wings.

"Give him a kiss, too." Tai joked pumping a fist making me frown at him and I saw Matt shaking his head in disapproval.

"Ha, ha." I said dryly.

A group of girls were shrieking as the Tamachi bus pulled up and to my surprise, Ken wasn't even with his team!

"Where's Ken?" I asked.

"Where is he?" I heard Kari ask.

"Izzy? No, we're waiting for Ken." TK said.

"Uh, we know that. Ken's not coming, is he, Cody?' Yolei asked angered at the boy.

"Will you stop asking me if I say 'yes'?" he asked.

"No I won't." she growled squishing poor Poromon.

"Lucky for me I have no spine." The bird said.

I got up from my stretches and went over to one of the green uniformed team members.

"Um, excuse me. Do any of you know when Ken's supposed to arrive?" I asked with Kai, Rei and Takeshi flanking me.

"Well, he's got s soft drink commercial shoot and a meeting about having a soccer ball named after him." Boy1 said.

"Ken hardly had time to play soccer anymore." Boy2 said.

"What?" Rei asked with a frown.

"What a waste." Kai sighed as the three walked back off to our team.

I can't blame them for being so disappointed.

I was really eager to play against him too.

"Hey, Daisuke. Can we talk?" Tai called making me turn and run over to him when he got down to the field.

"Even if Ken doesn't show, his teammates are still champions. If you're not careful, they'll use you as the ball." He said.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

"But you gotta know if you play really well against last year's champions-"TK called making me look over to him.

"Win or lose, you'll still be a hero." Kari finished.

"Right!" I said with a smile hearing Tai faintly gasp before I turned away from him when the game started.

The ref blew the whistle and I started running down the field, chasing after the ball, concentrating hard.

I'm not giving up so easily.

So what if Ken isn't here?

This is still my game and I'm gonna win it no matter what.

A Tamachi boy had the ball, but Rei kicked it from under him, passing it to Satoshi as I ran up to the goal and soon he kicked it over to me and I head butted it right into the net, scoring the first goal of the match.

The game raged on and I was really pushing myself out there against these guys, when finally break was called when the first half was done.

The score was still 1/0, our team in the lead.

"It's rewinding. There. You look good on camera." Kari said as I walked over to the digi team.

Kari had taken pictures of the match and was showing them to us all.

"Thanks, Kari." I said.

"You kicked the ball really hard." Demiveemon said.

"You nailed that shot, Daisuke." TK said making me blush from the praise.

"I think you're almost better than Tai." Matt said with a smirk making Tai gently hit him in the arm.

"Hey, you guys only lead by 1 goal. The game's still wide open and Ken could still show up." The original of Courage said.

"It's him!" a group of girls screamed making us all turn to see a certain indigo haired boy step out of a cab.

Thanks for jinxing me, Tai.

"It's Ken! I don't believe it. I must be dreaming. Somebody pinch me." Yolei gushed making my temples throb at how annoying she was acting.

"Ow!" she whined as Cody did just as she asked.

Remind me to kiss that kid.

I was watching Ken as he walked down the stairs, but he paused when he looked over at us and he…grimaced?

Was I seeing things?

"He's looking right at us! Oh, I think I'm going to faint!" Yolei kept gushing as I felt his cold blue eyes fall on me.

I felt frozen while our eyes were locked and I couldn't move at all, like we were both under some sort of spell.

"Daisuke?" Matt asked placing a hand on my shoulder making me gasp and look back to the blonde.

"Y-Yeah?" I asked.

"You all right?" he asked looking worried.

I forced a small smile and nodded before I turned back to Ken.

He then smirked and continued on down the stairs and went over to his team, talking to his coach.

"For all the attention he's getting, that guy sure knows how to keep his cool." Tai said.

I walked up to my place on the field, ready to continue the game, but I couldn't get that weird trance out of my head.

Just what was that?

Ken then walked up in front of me, substituting for one of his teammates.

"Hello. You must be Ken Ichijouji. I'm Daisuke Motomiya." I said politely as he gave a smile that seemed so cold.

He hummed in thought as he glanced towards my…friends I guess I can call them.

"He's just a kid like you, Daisuke!" Kari called.

"You gotta out run him!" TK called.

"You can do it! And even if you can't, we won't think any less of you." Tai called making me narrow my eyes at that.

"Some nice friends you got there, Daisuke." Ken said.

The ref blew the whistle and like that, Ken shot off like a blur of green and indigo, his hand brushing against my side as he stole the ball and I turned watching as he made it down to the goal and kicked the ball in.

All the girls cheered for him, including Yolei, as my teammates and I stood there in shock, unsure of what had just happened.

"Houston, we have a problem." I sighed.

As the game went on, my teammates and I kept trying to catch up to him, but he was way too fast and outmaneuvered us all.

He was also ordering his teammates around like a general with his army, barking orders at them.

"What're we gonna do?" Takao asked.

I bit my lip in though, thinking hard.

"Keep him distracted and cover me." I told the boys around me and they nodded as they covered the Rocket.

I watched as he kicked the ball up and when it came down and he went to kick it, that's when I made my move.

I did my signature sliding block, surprising him since he didn't even see me and knocked him off his feet, making the girls gasp in horror as the whistle was blown, calling the end of game.

Sadly, we lost 1/9, but at least we were able to catch the superstar off guard.

"Nice tackle. Have a nice trip, Ken. See ya next fall!" Tai called.

Kai and Rei came over and helped me off the ground, Takao and Kosuke both tackling me in a hug as Ken got up and walked away with a slight limp.

I looked at his leg and saw that I had accidentally nicked his leg with my cleats, so I pulled away from the group hug and followed after him.

"Hey, Ken!" I called making him stop and turn to me.

"Hey, are you all right? I'm sorry about that." I said looking at the small bits of blood speckling his green sock.

"I barely felt it. Too busy thinking about scoring goals." He said with a grin.

"Sorry again though. I guess I was more focused on stopping that last goal and was a little too rough." I said blushing in some shame.

"It's fine. If you keep up like that, you might actually be in a championship game." He said making me look at him in wonder.

"I hope to." I said.

"Well, until we meet on the battle field again, my worthy adversary." He said holding his hand out for me to shake.

I smiled and he seemed a bit stunned by it, the coldness in his eyes fading away as they became livelier as I took his hand.

Maybe he was just cold because he didn't have any real friends.

I guess I could try and be his friend.

"Sounds like a plan." I said.

I turned away from him with a final smile and went over to the digi team as they crowded around me, Demiveemon jumping into my arms and snuggled up to me.

**(The next day…)**

"Gimme your hand." Yolei said as we were in the computer lab.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'll tell you why. Because I said so." She snapped.

"You better give me a better reason than that." I said crossing my arms as Demiveemon sat on my head.

"Since you shook hands with Ken, if I shake hands with you, it'll almost be like I was shaking hands with him." She said making me blanch.

Oh, she's just as stupid as my sister when it comes to guys.

"That makes no sense whatsoever." I said.

"Fine, I'll wait to shake hands with my beloved in person." She sighed.

"Oh brother." We all groaned.

"Just what're you doing, Cody?" TK asked the boy as he looked at the computer.

"I can't believe it." he gasped.

"You're dreaming. Let me pinch you." Upamon said.

"It's a control spire." The child of Knowledge said making us turn to see that a block square had appeared in the center of a white area.

"What's it doing there?" Kari asked.

"Controlling, spirring. The usual." Gatomon said.

"It must have been built over night. Amazing." Cody said.

"So just where is it located?" the child of Hope asked as Cody got to work typing.

"I'm not sure. This map doesn't list the points of interest." Cody said.

"It's the Forbidden Valley of No Return." Upampn said.

"Why do bad guys always names things like that?" the child of Light asked.

"It's in the job description, right after really stinky breath." TK said.

And maniacal laughter.

"Even if this place was called 'Valley of Duckies and Bunnies' with a control spire there, there's trouble." Cody said.

"We've got to destroy it before it's used to control all the digimon, yeah?" TK asked making Kari gasp.

"Right." She said.

"What're we waiting for? Let's go, Daisuke." The blonde said as Yolei still stood in front of me.

"Right." I nodded as we all pulled out our D-3s and were in a barren land with no living life around.

"Wow, this valley sure looks forbidden all right." Kari said.

"A few duckies and bunnies would spruce this place up." Veemon said.

"Come on, quite kidding around. The Digimon Emperor could be anywhere so stay sharp." TK said.

"Let's stay together." Cody said as we started walking.

"I think this valley is kinda quaint and homey." Yolei said.

"Quiet you guys, we don't want the Emperor to hear us coming." Kari said just as the duo of Love were sucked into the ground.

"I bet he heard that." Kari said.

"They're gone." Gatomon gasped just as she, Kari, TK and Patamon were pulled down into the ground.

What the-?

Is this quick sand?

"The ground just ate them. Maybe it'll swallow us next." Veemon said.

"We better figure out what to do before we find more trouble." I said.

"More trouble has found you." The Emperor's voice echoed making us turn to look for him.

"Digimon Emperor, what have you done?" I asked.

"Your friends are with me. Come and help if you dare." He said making my blood boil.

That creep!

"Let's go." I said as we both ran off to find the jerk.

"I wanted to get more exercise, but running for my life wasn't what I had in mind." Veemon panted.

"I'm more worried about my friends right now." I said.

We kept running until we found the Emperor standing up on a cliff with the spire standing tall behind him.

"There he is." Veemon said.

"All right, you better let my friends go right now." I demanded making him laugh.

"Oh, I am so scared." He taunted.

"What have you done with them?" I demanded.

"Take a look. Your friends are at my mercy and so, would it appear, are you." He said.

We looked over to see this curved out rock bridge with the others all tied up, hanging at least 30 feet above the ground.

"Daisuke, save yourself!" Kari yelled.

"Run, you can still escape." TK said.

"Don't take your eyes off the Emperor." Cody advised.

"What are you waiting for? Save me!" Yolei yelled.

"Don't worry, we'll get you all down." I called up to them feeling a great amount of worry.

"Think fast. Your time is running short. Oops, time's up." The Emperor laughed making me look at him, wondering what he was talking about.

"Awaken, Deltamon!" he called as the ground shook.

"Maybe it's a ducky or a bunny." Veemon said as the mountain behind my friends was destroyed by a large, ugly three headed dinosaur, his hands being his second and third head.

"Deltamon is a dragon type digimon with a metal hand and a skull for the other." Veemon explained.

"What luck that you all dropped by. See, it's Deltamon's dinner time and I think eating all of you would make a well balanced meal, don't you?" the Emperor teased as the evil dragon roared at my friends making me gasp in dread and fear for them.

"You're not gonna get away with this." I yelled at him.

"Looks like you have no choice. If you want me to show mercy, you must beg for it." he said making me gap at him offended.

"What?" I asked slowly.

"You heard me pathetic loser. On your knees and beg. 'Please Master, spare my friend'." He said.

I weighed my options here and saw that he was the one who had the upper hand.

I sighed and slumped my shoulders in defeat before I fell to my hands and knees, Veemon looking at me in shock.

"Don't, Dai." He said.

"Please Master, spare my friends." I said in a steady voice.

I swear, the things I'll do for these people I call friends.

I'm throwing away my pride for them, getting mocked at by the enemy.

"Please Mater, spare my worthless friends." He said.

I held in a growl of anger as I bowed my head down, making Veemon gasp again as I felt sick to my stomach at being in this submissive position.

"Please Master, spare my worthless, annoying, aggravating friends." I snarled.

He laughed at my additions.

"Well said. That's excellent. Now Veemon, restrain him. I command you." The Emperor said.

"Never!" my dragon yelled shaking in anger.

"It's OK, V. do what he says for now." I said.

"Dai…" he said softly.

"Do it for the others. If it'll save my friends, just obey the Emperor." I said.

He whimpered in displeasure and I felt pressure on my head as he placed his foot there, the Emperor laughing again.

"Seeing you squirm is so delicious." He said as Veemon lifted his foot away and let me raise my head up to glare at the creep.

"You are so entertaining. Maybe I should take pity on you. As you can see, Deltamon has only three mouths, but there are four children, therefore you may have one. Sadly, I cannot spare them all. Choose who will be spared." He said making me gasp.

"You're insane! There's no way I can choose." I said as Deltamon roared making my friends yell.

"This must be done delicately. You have until the sand run out to choose." The Emperor said as he held a small pink hourglass.

"And it isn't long, sweetheart. It isn't long." He taunted making me snarl and shake in suppressed rage with tears in my eyes.

"Don't worry about me. Save one of the others." Kari yelled.

"Get out of here, Daisuke. Go ahead. Save yourself." TK yelled.

"Oh, sure. Make me look bad. Fine then, don't save me." Yolei said.

"Whatever you decide to do, Daisuke, we trust you, so think of something." Cody said.

There's no way I can just choose one of them.

How can I do that and how can he even consider it at all for that matter?

Time's running out too and I'll have to choose, but I can't.

"Dai, time's running out." Veemon said.

"Like sands in the hourglass, so are your friends' lives. Will you throw all your friends' lives away? Is that what you call friendship?" the Emperor asked.

They're all my friends, TK was right.

I can't just let them get hurt.

I groaned as I held my head as it started pounding in pain from how much this is effecting me and he laughed at me.

"And now Digidestind, time's up. It's time to say goodbye." He said making me gasp and look at them as they all cried out in fear as Deltamon growled at them.

"Wait, take me instead of them!" I begged standing making my dragon gasp.

"You think you can satisfy his hunger? All right then. Deltamon!" the Emperor called making the dragon stomp towards me.

"Look out, Daisuke!" TK yelled.

"Dai, if you've been holding back a surprise attack, now would be the time to yell surprise!" Veemon cried as Deltamon came over.

The ground then opened up, Deltamon falling through.

"What's going on?" the Emperor asked.

"Surprise? It isn't even my birthday." the smoke cleared to show Digmon was there and I was sure as heck surprised by this.

"How is that even possible?" I asked.

"Coming!" voices called out making us turn to see three flying armor digimon swooping in with my friends running over to me.

"Pegasusmon, Nefertimon, Halsemon." Veemon said.

"It's an illusion. We're all right." TK said as he came over to us.

Just then, the copies turned into these creepy ghost digimon and I felt my eyes grow wide as a faded memory from my childhood crept into my mind.

"Ew, gross! What are those things?" Yolei asked.

"Despite their obvious dental hygiene problems Bakemon are able to accurately impersonate any other creature. Their attack is called the Dark Claw. He made the Bakemon look like our friends." Veemon said as I shook off the memory and was soon replaced by anger at being made a fool of.

"I can't believe it! You dumb Bakemon! I had that kid right where I wanted her!" the Emperor yelled.

"I can't believe you pulled that trick on me! Go get him, Veemon." I said.

"It'll be my pleasure." He nodded.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I yelled.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

"Bakemon, you gapped tooth fools, get them!" the Emperor commanded as the ghost came down to fight the armour digimon.

"The Emperor's controlling them. The dark rings the Bakemon are wearing are the key. He's ordering them around like a general leading his army." TK said making me think hard on that.

Why did that sound so familiar?

I then ran off, going up the cliff unnoticed by anyone as the Emperor continued ordering the Bakemon around.

"I have them now." He said.

"Think again." I said tackling him down to the ground, him gasping from the sudden attack.

I hadn't really thought this well out as I landed on his front as we both started sliding down the side of the cliff, our hands locked together as we slid down.

"You tried to take over the Digital World and destroy me. What is your problem? How can you be like this?" I asked as pebbles flew up and hit me in the face.

"I am a genius. I cannot lose to a kid like you!" he yelled at me.

"Newsflash, you ARE like me!" I yelled as we got the bottom of the ground and he threw me off of him.

"I think not. Deltamon, Triplex Pulse!" the Emperor yelled.

Deltamon came over and blue flames were sparking in his in his three mouths about to hit me.

"Say goodbye." The Emperor laughed.

"Hello." A voice said making me look to the side and smile.

"Flamedramon!" I called.

"Why leave so soon? The party's just starting." He said.

Deltamon started blasting the blue flames at us, Flamedramon jumping up as he was covered in flames and cut right through the blue flames with ease.

"Flamedramon, aim for the ring!" I yelled.

He did as I said, the dark ring smashing from the attack.

The Bakemon started acting all loopy and our digimon took advantage of it all, freeing them and destroying the control spire.

"They did it!" the others cheered.

"Yes!" I cheered.

"No…no. what went wrong? My master plan was invincible! I see I've neglected the fact that you're those all or nothing types. I can't believe the same person made me look like a fool twice in the same day." The Emperor said.

"What do you mean?" I asked as my eyes trailed down to his ankle and they grew wide at the blood that seeped through his pant leg.

"That can't be…I mean…you're…" I stuttered in horror wishing it wasn't true.

"I could and I am. Ken Ichijouji." He said standing and pulling his visor off, revealing those same cold blue eyes.

"You're the Digimon Emperor?" I asked feeling sick again.

"The one and only. Well, Daisuke, farewell for now my worthy adversary until we meet again in battle." He laughed as Airdramon swooped in and he jumped up, landing on the dragon's back as it flew off with him.

I watched with tears in my eyes, that feeling of betrayal coming back to me.

It happened.

I opened myself up to friendship and it all came back to bite me in the rear.

How…why does this keep happening to me?

Is this a sign that I'm not even meant to have friends?

To be continued…


	10. The Emperor's New Home

"The Emperor's New Home"

**I'm glad to see you guys really liked the last chapter. Hope you all like this one and please review.**

I had gone home feeling really upset about what had happened.

I mean, a guy I wanted to become friends with had turned out to be my enemy, the person who wanted to destroy innocents' homes and lives and tried to kill me.

Who wouldn't be upset about this?

TK tried calling me to see how I was feeling, but I just ignored every call.

I wasn't in the mood to hear from anyone at the moment.

I felt like I was drowning again, sinking deeper inside myself into a chasm of darkness.

The night I got home, I had a dream that was peaceful, but soon turned dark.

My friends and I were all at the beach, my friends running to the water to have some fun, but then a fog rolled in turning everything dark and cold as my friends disappeared from sight.

The mist turned the water black and there were sounds of creatures crying out in pain, fear and agony all around me, but I couldn't see them.

The air was filled with so many horrible feelings of doubt, anger and depression that were suffocating me.

My body was frozen from the damp air around me so badly that it started to burn.

"Daisuke?" a voice called out.

I looked around, unsure of where the voice was coming from.

"Daisuke, come on. Wake up." The voice came again as this soft blue light floated down on me.

I closed my eyes as the depression fell away and when I opened them again, I was back in my room, meeting the eyes of Matt.

I blushed brightly at him holding me to his chest, Demiveemon sitting on his shoulder with a worried expression.

"Are you all right?" Matt asked.

"Y-Yeah, but how did you in my room?" I asked.

"Your sister let me in." he said with a small grin as he helped me sit up.

"Why did you come here?" I asked.

"You weren't answering anyone when they called you, so I decided to come over to check on you. When Jun let me in, I heard you screaming, so I ran in to see if you were OK. What were you dreaming about?" he asked.

"I was really scared." Demiveemon whimpered as he jumped into my arms.

I smiled sadly at my dragon as I hugged him, feeling bad for worrying him.

"It was nothing you need to worry about." I said.

"You really need to get to the school to meet with the others. Look, I know you're worried about what happened with Ken, but you're the leader of the Digidestinds and they need you right now." Matt said.

I looked up into his eyes and nodded as I got up, grabbing my bag with shampoo and body wash in it.

"Just let me get ready and I'll go." I said.

After twenty minutes, I got out and was dressed, Matt waiting for me in the kitchen, rescuing him from my sister when I saw she was pestering him about a date and he led me to the school and I ran in without him, finding the others were there with Izzy.

"Who would think such a normal looking guy would be the DIgimon Emperor." Cody said as they all looked at a magazine, no one noticing me yet.

"His smile makes him look so gentle." Kari said.

"Uh, yeah, but his haircut makes him look like you, Kari." TK said.

"I think Kari's prettier than Ken is." I said making everyone gasp and turn to see me.

"Daisuke, why weren't you in school today?" Kari asked.

"Sorry, I wasn't feeling too well before." I said letting Demiveemon rush off to share the food Yolei brought with the other digimon.

"Well, as long as you're here now." Izzy said taking the magazine from Yolei to get a better look at Ken.

"So what's the plan here?" I asked.

"We're going to his house to confront him." Cody said making me nod, agreeing with him.

"I'll use my map program to locate the apartment building behind Ken in this picture." Izzy said going to the computer and started typing.

"It looks like a nice place to live." Yolei said.

"If my calculations are correct, he should live…right around here." The red head said clicking on the place.

"I know that area." Kari said placing her finger on the screen.

"You smudged my screen!" he whined.

"I think there's an apartment building there under Kari's fingerprint." TK said.

We all started going off to Tamachi to confront Ken, TK's eyes on me the entire time we were on the train.

I just ignored them as we finally got to the apartment.

"Here it is." TK said as we heard sirens going off.

"This is the place where we stop Ken once and for all." The blonde said.

"OK, I wrote down a battle plan." Cody said looking at the sheet of paper he worked on during the train ride here.

"Uh, does it include the police?" Yolei asked as the sirens got louder and squad cars drove to the apartment buildings.

Curious, we ran to the front of the building where the policemen and some people that lived around this area were standing.

"Little Ken Ichijouji is missing and no one has any idea where he might be." A woman whispered to her friends.

"I think…he's run away from home." A man that was Ken's father said to the police as Ken's mother cried.

"Run away from home?" Cody asked.

"It's easy to figure out where he went to." I said feeling annoyed that he would make his parents sad because of his petty scheme to take over another world.

The next day we met with Izzy and told him what had happened.

"I think you're right. Ken is probably in the Digital World, but it's dangerous to just rush in there." Izzy said.

"But the longer we wait, the more time he has to plot against us." The child of Light said.

"We need a new plan." Cody said.

"We need to know what Ken's doing. Let's check the computer." Izzy said as he turned it on and started typing away to see what was going on.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" TK asked when we saw the screen.

"Ken is taking over areas of the Digital World faster than ever before." Izzy said.

"Then let's go." I said shocking everyone.

"We can't afford to be reckless. Remember the expression, 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread'." Izzy said.

"So what do you think we should do?" Kari asked.

"You know, being a fool is really low on my priority list, but I can't just sit here and do nothing." The child of Hope said.

"Why do evil geniuses have to be so evil?" the young child of Knowledge asked.

"Ah, he doesn't look capable of causing such trouble, you know?" Yolei said making me narrow my eyes.

She's still obsessed with him even after everything that happened.

"Well, he is and don't let yourself forget it." Izzy said.

"Well, I've had enough waiting." I said making everyone look at me.

"We're wasting our time just sitting here talking about him, debating things and avoiding the obvious. He's evil and we need to defeat him before he hurts more innocents." I said.

"She's right. Let's get it into gear." Kari said.

"Yeah." TK said.

"I'm with you. Let's fight." Yolei said.

"You convinced me. No more hesitation." Izzy said standing up while I pulled out my D-3.

"Let's go get that evil cute guy." Yolei said making me twap her over the head.

"OW!"

"No obsessing over boys or you're staying here." I said.

"Fine." She pouted.

"I'll be watching over you. Good luck guys." Izzy said as we were dragged into the gate.

The land we landed in was boiling hot with magma and flames all over the place.

"Look at this land of fire. It's like the movie…'Land of Fire'." TK said.

"I know." Yolei groaned.

"Sure is hot." She said.

"Keep your eyes opened. Trouble could be anywhere." I said as we walked towards the spire that was spotted.

A lake of magma bubbled as a digimon that looked like the Human Torch jumped up from it.

"Meramon are very dangerous. They can burn you with their Roaring Flame attack or just by touching you." Kari said as more of them showed up.

"Time to fight fire with fire." I said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

We all ran out of the way as fire started flying around us from the Meramon group and Flamedramon.

"I don't think fire attacks are going to work on them." Kari said as Flamedramon's Fire Rockets just made them laugh.

"My turn." Hawkmon said.

"Get him, Hawkmon!" Yolei said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Halsemon: the Wings of Love!"

Halsemon soared through the air and started twirling into a tornado, but all he did was fan the flames on the Meramon.

"Halsemon, stop! You're making the flames bigger!" Yolei called.

"Nothing is working. It's up to you, Armadillomon." Cody said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

Digmon used Rock Cracking on the ground, making the Meramon all fall down into the magma lake below them all.

"Way to go." Cody said.

"Look!" Kari gasped as they just surfaced from the lake.

"Watch out!" Yolei cried.

"We can't beat them here. This is their element, they draw power from it and it makes them come back even stronger." I said as they jumped in front of us, ready to continue.

"Here they come." Yolei yelled.

"My turn?" Patamon asked.

"Let's do it!" TK said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Patamon armour digivolve too…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

Halsemon used an attack that stunned two of the Meramon in place as Pegasusmon used Star Shower on them to try and get the rings off their necks.

"Are you ready?' Kari asked her partner.  
"Always am." Gatomon said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Gatomon armour digivolve too…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

Nerfertimon swooped in and took care of the rest of the Meramon, leaving just the spire left for us to take care of.

"That's what you get for playing with fire." Kari said.

There was then the beating of wings and snarling that made us all turn to see Ken had arrived in his Emperor getup, a flock of Airdramon carrying a skeletal creature that looked like it came from your worst nightmares.

"Oh no!" TK yelled as Kari gasped.

"It's SkullGreymon!" TK said.

I'm afraid to even ask what that even is.

"The only thing more terrifying than its looks are its fighting skills. Especially his Dark Shot attack." T said.

"Skull…Greymon?" Ken asked as if he wasn't expecting the creature to appear at all, even though he was the one who brought him.

SkullGreymon tore the wires binding him off, throwing the Airdramon to the ground before, the Airdramon with Ken and Wormmon on it still in the air.

SkullGreymon roared, looking even more horrifying than he was already, looking ready for a fight.

"How can we beat that thing?" I asked as it punched out a Meramon.

"I have no idea." Kari said as SkullGreymon stormed around the area.

"I have one." TK said nervously.  
"What?" I asked.

"I say we run and after that we run some more." He said.

"That's your plan?!" I asked.

Our amour digimon all rushed at SkullGreymon, Flamedramon using his Fire Rockets on him, but the monster just back handed him away.

"Flamedramon!" I called out in worry as he reverted back to Veemon.

Digmon was hit next.

"Digmon, no!" Cody yelled as he transformed back into Armadillomon.

Halsemon tried to take him out form the skies, but he was just smacked down out of the sky, turning back into Hawmon.

"Halsemon!" Yolei cried as SkullGreymon started advancing towards us.

"Everyone, run!" Nefertimon yelled as she and Pegasusmon swooped in.

"But we have to fight SkullGreymon." Kari said.

"Yes, that's a great idea. Stay clustered together to make an easy target. Get to safety!" Pegasusmon yelled.

SkullGreymon then used his Dark Shot the orange rocket on his back shooting off in lazy patterns as it went straight off towards the spire, destroying it.

The force of the explosion made us all brace ourselves for cover as debris blew all over us, nearly knocking us off our feet, blowing the flying digimon out of the sky.

I feel so grateful that I have goggles and pulled them down and blocked out the wind and dust as I watched the spire shatter.

After the bright light and winds faded away, we watched as SkullGreymon stood there, looking eager for a fight.

"You wanna play rough?" Ken asked as he blew a whistle.

"I'm afraid to find out who he's calling." TK said as we looked around.

The ground shook as a heard of black dinosaurs appeared from the other side of the landscape.

"What are those things?" Yolei asked.

"They're DarkTyrannomon." Cody gasped.

"A computer program turned Tyrannomon into the evil DarkTyrannomon. Watch out for his Fire Breath attack." He said.

"Why can't we ever fight anything short?" Kari asked as we all back into a rock formation, hiding from the dinos as they stomped pass us and went to SkullGreymon.

"Like some mice." Yolei said.

"Evil doesn't come in short." I said as Veemon clung to my shoulders.

The DarkTyrannomon blasted out flames at SkullGreymon, watching in anticipation to see what was happening.

SkullGreymon just roared and smacked them all away, then grabbed one, holding it up over his head.

I really hope he isn't going to eat him.

I draw the line at fighting cannibalizing monsters.

Thankfully, he just tossed the black dino away.

"Hope he doesn't get the idea to throw us around." Yolei said.

"He beat them all single handed." Kari said as the last DarkTyrannomon was thrown into the magma lake.

SkullGreymon was then covered in golden light as he started to shrink down and when the light faded away, it revealed the loveable orange dino we knew.

"That's Agumon!" Kari said.

"That slimy creature is coming after him and when I say slimy creature, I mean Ken." TK said as Airdramon swooped down and picked Agumon up by his tail, flying off with him.

Oh, Tai's gonna be so heartbroken and madder than holy heck when he finds out about this.

"Agumon!" Kari called.

"Let him go!" TK cried.

"AGUMON!" Kari yelled running forward a few steps.

"You better not hurt him, Ken!" TK yelled.

"Get back here, you pathetic coward!" I yelled shaking in suppressed rage that we couldn't do anything.

"From defeat I snatch another victory." Ken laughed as they flew off.

"TK, Daisuke, do something! They're getting away!" Kari cried sadly.

We all watched in horror as they flew off, no one able to do anything but stand paralyzed by the turn of events.

To be continued…


	11. The Captive Digimon

"The Captive Digimon"

**Here is the next chapter. Please enjoy and review everyone.**

The next day it was raining outside, thunder booming and the sun was blocked out, the gloomy weather suiting all of our moods.

Tai was going to be coming with us to the Digital World to save Agumon from the Emperor.

I was there in the lab with Tai, Cody and Izzy when Kari and TK just ran into the room.

"You guys are late." Tai said.

"We're so sorry, Tai." Kari breathed from running.

"Yeah, we would've been here sooner, but we got tied up with Mrs. Mitsu." TK said.

"Now let's go and save Agumon." Kari said.

"But where is Yolei?" TK asked when he noticed the lavender haired girl was missing even though her partner was with us.

"She's cleaning her glasses." Izzy said standing from his seat at the computer.

"Well hurry up and go find her so we can leave already." Tai said.

"I'll go." I said standing up, Cody right behind me.

"I'll go too." He said.

We both stepped out of the door and stopped in our tracks when we saw that the child of Love was standing there at the door and she didn't look very good.

"Yolei." Cody gasped.

"Hey, how you doing?" she asked in an unenthusiastic voice as she walked into the room.

"Yolei, we've been waiting for you to go to the Digital World. We're going to save Agumon." The original of Courage said.

"What's wrong?" I asked stepping in front of her when I noticed how miserable she looked and felt a bit concerned.

"Aren't you excited to go to the Digital World?" Poromon asked.

"I'm not going." She said shocking everyone.

"Why not? Tell us what's wrong so we can help." Demiveemon begged.

"Oh, I can see you're the last person I would turn to if I were in trouble and needed some help." Tai sniped making me turn to glare at him.

"Be nice, Tai." His sister said holding his arm.

"I'm sorry. I'm just worried about Agumon." He apologized.

"I don't want any of you to put yourself in danger if you feel like you're not up to the challenge, so maybe it would be best if you stayed here, Yolei. I don't want anyone going if their heart's not into it." he said making Kari nod.

"And if it'll make you feel any better, Yolei, you can stay and do my math homework just to keep yourself busy." The child of Hope said.

"Now that I think about it, my kendo sticks could use some polishing." Cody said.

"It's all right if I don't go?" Yolei asked.

"Sure, you can make a day of it. Cleaning, math homework, and all those other fun things you love." Izzy said smiling at her.

"You sure?" she asked again.

"What do we have to do? Hold up a sign? If everyone says you can stay, then you should stay." Gatomon said.

"Gatomon's right, Yolei. If you don't feel like going to the Digital World, then I don't feel like going either." Poromon said.

"Now that that's finally settled, let's go get Agumon." TK said pumping a fist.

"Right." Kari agreed walking over to the computer.

"If everyone's ready, let's go Digidestinds. Digi port open!" she cried holding up her pink and white D-3.

Here we go.

I sent one last look to Yolei, seeing how upset she looked before the light pulled us all into the gate.

We wound up in the area near where we first saw SkullGreymon and there was Tentomon to greet us.

"It's so good to have the whole gang back again." He said sitting in a tree that looked like its seen better days.

"Welcome to my tree house. Actually, it's not much of a tree house anymore since SkullGreymon disintegrated it, now it's more of a twig house. But that's OK. I was planning on redecorating anyway." Tentomon said.

"We're a little more preoccupied about stopping the Digimon Emperor from hurting more digimon." I said.

"It's incredibly important we stop him. If he continues to gain power like this, he'll threaten the entire Digital World." Tai said as Cody swung his kendo stick he brought with him, almost hitting Armadillomon.

"Hey, watch it Cody. Be careful." He said.

"I'm sorry, but that Ken makes me so angry." The child of Knowledge said.

"Yeah, me too!" Armadillomon yelled.

"Armadillomon, you really need to control your temper." His partner said.

"How in the Digital World are we supposed to find out where Agumon is?" Patamon asked as Tentomon buzzed by us.

"Tentomon will help." TK said.

"Now that Tentomon is out of his tree, maybe we can climb up it and have a look around." Veemon said making me shake my head in amusement at him.

"STAY OUT OF MY TREE!" the bug yelled making my dragon's ears droop.

"You OK?" Kari asked her brother, but he ignored her.

"Tai hasn't been this angry since I popped his soccer ball with my claws." Gatomon said.

"He certainly has a right to be." TK said.

"All this standing around is making my paws itch. Let's get going." The white cat said.

"Great idea. I'll go see what I can find out and don't touch my tree! I know exactly how many pieces of bark are around it." Tentomon said as he flew off.

"Everything will be OK, Tai." The child of Light said.

"I know." He said turning away to start walking, the rest of us following him.

"Look, a control spire. This is one of the areas controlled by the Digimon Emperor." Tai said as we all looked up to the hill.

"Something's coming." I said as the ground moved, something bursting from the sand.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

We stood waiting for the creature to emerge and it was a tree looking monster.

"I am Woodmon! I cannot be defeated." The digimon said.

Flamedramon was covered in flames as he charged at Woodmon, knocking Woodmon back into the spire.

"Hey, I'm being defeated!" he cried.

The spire crackled with sparks as it fell on top of Woodmon, but he caught it just as the ring shattered.

"What happened to me? Who're you?" Woodmon asked now that he wasn't a slave.

"Hey, Woodmon, do you know where the Digimon Emperor can be found?" Tai called to him.

"Well, I'm not really sure, but I think he went that way." The digimon said using one of his four arms to point in the direction up the hill.

"Thanks a bunch. Let's go." Tai said looking at me before we started running up the hill.

"Wait, can I get a little help here?" Woodmon called making me and Flamedramon stop.

"Help him out." I said to my dragon who nodded and helped Woodmon lift the spire up and throw it to the side.

"Thank you!" Woodmon said as Flamedramon came back to where I was, picked me up and ran off to catch up to the others.

As soon as we were caught up, my dragon set me down as he turned back to Veemon and ran alongside me.

Yolei sent us a message and said that Agumon was being held in some place called Rail Town, so that's where we were headed, the male leader at the front of the group, walking with determination, not even caring that some of us were getting tired and falling behind.

"Tai, slow down!" Cody called as he had trouble keeping up.

"We don't have the time to slow down." Tai said as he led us off into the grassy area.

"We've made it. Rail Town." Tai said.

"Come on guys, Agumon is in this town somewhere, so let's go! Everybody split up and start looking for him." Tai said as we all started looking around the grassy area.

It looked like a nice place to live with the lush green grass, the train tracks and the homey houses.

"Tai, Agumon's close. I'm following his tracks." TK said.

"Those are train tracks, TK." The 16 years old sighed as a train whistle sounded.

Call me paranoid, but maybe we should get off of the tracks.

"What's that noise?" Veemon asked as we looked over to where it was coming from, me expecting to see a train coming and there was the black train.

"It's the local express." Kari said as the light came out of the tunnel.

"And look who's driving." TK said when we saw a smiling orange lizard.

We all jumped off the tracks so we wouldn't get hit as it came to a slow stop.

"It's-It's Agumon! Agumon!" Tai called.

"Tai!" he called back.

"Agumon, are you OK?" Tai asked running over to his partner.

"I'm fine. Tai!" Agumon cried jumping into his arms.

"I'm so happy to see you. Give me a great big hug." Tai said squeezing the lizard tightly to his chest making the lizard groan in pain.

"Are you OK? Did he hurt you?" Tai asked.

"No, you were just squeezing my ribs too hard." Agumon said.

"Tai, we should get going. I'm sure Ken will come after Agumon." Kari said.

"Listen, I wanna get back at the guy who did this to Agumon, but he's been through a lot so we gotta get him back to safety." Tai said.

"Then let's get moving." I said knowing that when Ken gets here he won't be in a very good mood.

Agumon was helped onto Tai's back as we started following the tracks out of this place.

"We'll get you some cookies and ice cream." Tai said.

"I want mine with chocolate sprinkles." Agumon said.

"How endearing!" a voice we all grew to hate mocked.

We all turned, gasping to see the wannabe ruler standing up on the train tunnel above us.

"It's Ken!" Kari said.

"My name is the Digimon Emperor." He said.

"It doesn't roll of the tongue very nicely." I said with a fake thoughtful look as I crossed my arms.

"I prefer Kenneth or Kendall. Maybe Ken-chan, that seems to suit you far better." I said angering him.

"You really don't wanna make me angry!" he yelled.

"So you're the one who put Agumon in a cage like a wild animal." Tai said placing his partner back down.

"Why don't you face us yourself instead of hiding behind your slaves like a coward?" I asked glaring up at him as he smirked down at me.

"You do amuse me so. I can defeat you just as I defeated Agumon." Ken said.

"Try it!" Tai said coming up to me, stepping in front of me protectively.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Ken. You're the kind of bully that gives bullies a bad name!" Cody yelled throwing his kendo stick up at him, but Ken pulled out his whip and sliced it in half.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to do better than that, little boy." Ken said as a small flock of Airdramon swooped in behind him and he cracked his whip again.

DarkTyrannomon came in, keeping us caged.

"We're surrounded." TK gasped.

"Give me the word, Dai." Veemon said making me nod at him and pull my D-3 out.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

"Don't let Flamedramon have all the fun, Cody." Armadillomon said.

"Right." Cody said holding his yellow and white D-3.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

A DarkTyrannomon blasted Flamedramon with a fire attack, but my dragon blacked it and then charged him with Flame Shield, knocking the dino back.

Another came up behind him, but Flamedramon threw his arm back, smashing the ring around his chest.

Digmon then used Rock Cracking on the ground, making three of the dinos fall down into the earth.

"They're winning!" Ken gasped.

Flamedramon then blasted his Fire Rocket to where Ken was standing, but the Airdramon flew him to safety.

"Flamedramon, what're you doing?" I asked him.

"What? I was stopping the Emperor." He said confused.

"He's evil, but he's still human. You need to be more careful." I said.

Ken might be evil, but he is still human and we can't kill a human.

What would his parents think if they found out about this?

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Kari and TK cried.

"Gatomon armour digivolve too…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

"Patamon armour digivolve too…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

Kari and TK mounted their partners and took to the skies, going after the Airdramon.

Pegasusmon seemed to have completely ignored what I said about not going after Ken since he used his attack on the human, but his cape was made of a strong material to protect himself.

Pegasusmon used his Aquis Beam on the Airdramon Ken was on, knocking the human off and he fell to the ground.

"Attack!" Agumon cried running off.

"Agumon!" Tai called chasing after him as Ken landed safely on the ground.

"So, you've come back to me, Agumon? And I've got a new friendship bracelet for you." The Emperor said as he pulled out a spiral that glowed red and he threw it at Agumon.

"What is this?" Agumon asked.

It wrapped itself around his arm, making him whine in pain as he fell to the ground.

"You are mine again." Ken laughed.

Agumon snarled as he stood up with his back to us.

"Agumon, are you OK?" Tai asked as his partner turned to him.

"Look out!" I yelled pushing him down before the flames the lizard shot out could hit him.

We both fell to the ground, then looked up over to the lizard to see his friendly green eyes were glowing red.

"He's being controlled again!" Cody said.

"Now Agumon, dark digivolve!" Ken commanded holding his gray and black D-3 up and it glowed an amethyst color as Agumon lifted his arm with the spiral, being covered in a blue light with a dark purple tint.

"Agumon dark digivolve too…METALGREYMON!"

There stood the Ultimate level dino that was dark blue with black stripes and looked part machine.

"He looks so different." Kari said.

"And mean. MetalGreymon's armour not only protects him from harm, but it conceals his destructive Giga Blaster attack." TK said.

"The dark spiral is working perfectly. Agumon is mine again." Ken said smirking as Tai ran up to face his partner.

"MetalGreymon, you've got to fight the Emperor's control. It's me, Tai. Don't you recognize me?" he asked as the Ultimate snarled at him.

"Ohh, such a tense moment. I've got chills. Will he remember you? Allow me to answer. MetalGreymon, attack!" Ken called.

"Look out!" I yelled running over and grabbed Tai's arm, pulling him away just as MetalGreymon stabbed his claws down right where he once stood.

"Tai, the spiral's blocking his memories. He doesn't know who you are anymore." I said holding onto his arm.

"Nefertimon, help me stop MetalGreymon!" Pegasusmon called as they both swooped in above us.

They used their Golden Noose and tied the dino up, flying over us with him and slamming him into the ground.

"Don't hurt him." Tai said as I tried to hold him back.

"He's metal, he'll be fine." Flamedramon said as Tai tried to run over, but I just wrapped my arms under his and and even used my lift leg to wrap around his waist to try and hold him back.

This really isn't working, he was just dragging me over to the fight in a very uncomfortable position.

"We've got him trapped!" Pegasusmon said.

"Digon, get to the dark spiral." Nefertimon said.

"That won't be a problem for old Digmon. If he just stopped dancing around. Hey, quit it!" Digmon yelled at MetalGreymon as he did a little jig, trying to get loose as Flamedramon ran up beside Digmon.

"Agumon!" Tai called making the dino look at us.

"Knock it off!" I yelled placing both feet on the ground and started pulling him back.

"Let go!" he yelled to me.

"I'm still too scared to move." Kari said.

"I've forgotten how to move." TK said.

"He's trying to break the Golden Noose!" Pegasusmon said.

"Watch it!" Nerfertimon yelled as he tried to step on my dragon and Cody's insectoid digimon, but they jumped away.

"Let me just try to reach him. AAHHH!" Tai growled as he still struggled to get out of my hold, my arms burning from how hard I was trying to hold him back.

"Would you stop?!" I yelled back at him as he nearly broke free.

He's going to tear my arms off if he keeps this up.

MetalGreymon then took that moment to break free, the force throwing the two flying digimon back and his chest armor opened up.

Tai stopped trying to break free and just grabbed my hands, pushing me away as everyone yelled as we ran away, our digimon standing in front of us to fight as we looked for cover.

MetalGreymon fired off his Giga Blaster, the flying digimon getting away while Flamedramon and Digmon just stood there, taking the hit.

I turned round, feeling my heart in my throat as worry consumed me at the thought that they might be hurt or gone.

Relief flooded me as the smoke cleared and they were fine, Nefertimon and Pegasusmon swooping in to land next to them.

Ken laughed, but then coughed as the smoke wafted up into his face.

"With the dark spirals, I will control the whole Digital World!" he said.

"Goodbye, Digi-fools and say goodbye to your pet, Agumon for good." He laughed as he got up on MetalGreymon's head, laughing at us.

Our digimon returned to normal as we watched them go.

"Agumon, no!" Tai said.

"That guy is just the worse." TK said as I knelt down beside Veemon, lifting my hand up to touch him, but grunted at the pain that shot up my arm.

"But how can we defeat him?" Cody asked.

"I let Agumon down just when he needed me the most and I-"Tai trailed off from his pity fest when we heard the sound of something coming on the tracks.

We all turned and saw some mining carts coming with our friends in it.

"It's Yolei and Hawkmon." TK said.

"And Matt." Kari said as we all got up and ran off to the cart, my legs burning as I went, so I slowed down.

"Sorry about not coming before." Yolei said as she stopped the carts.

"That's OK; I knew you'd show up eventually." Cody smiled at her.

"Well it's a good thing she did stay or I never would have found you all." Matt said jumping out of the cart.

"Why don't you fill me in on what's happened up until now?" he said.

TK did just as his brother asked and the sky turned pink as time went by, Tai standing off from us as he wallowed in his own misery.

"I see. Well, it certainly sounds like you had a full day." Matt said.

"That's right. It's all my fault." Tai said as I looked at him, rubbing my arms as they turned numb.

"Tai." Matt called walking over to me.

"Huh?" he asked.

Matt then pulled his arm back and punched him the face, making me gasp and cover my mouth in shock at the sudden act of violence.

"Tai?" the blonde asked holding his hand out to him.

I watched in curiosity as Tai caressed his throbbing cheek and accepted the hand.

"You're right. Thanks, Matt. I needed that." He said as he was pulled up, matt smiling at him.

"Sure, anytime. I'll do it again." The child of Friendship asked.

"I appreciate that. I know that I was just blaming myself for something that was completely out of my control and also it doesn't help if I stand around here and feel sorry for myself. But now we need to focus on how we can get Agumon back." Tai said.

"OK, we have to be willing to fight Agumon at full strength. I'm sure Agumon would definitely rather be defeated by us than remain a slave to the Digimon Emperor." Matt said as his best friend nodded to him and then walked over to us.

"You're right. In the future, when we battle the Digimon Emperor, we have to be prepared to face our friends and Agumon as well, so…I don't really know how to say this." Tai said.

"Let me handle this, Tai." Gatomon said turning to the digimon.

"Everyone, the next time you see Agumon, trash him, understand? I can't hear you!" she yelled.

"OK!" they said.

"To beat Agumon! I can't believe those words actually came out of my mouth." TK said.

"Yeah. Let's all get Agumon back." Yolei giggled.

We all got into the carts, me trying not to wince every time I moved as I got in with Tai and Matt, and all of us rode it off to where ever Agumon might be now.

"I've never traveled by sailing train carts before!" Tai laughed.

"That's how all of the important people travel." Kari joked.

"Cute." Tai chuckled sharing a look with Matt before they looked back to the front.

I'm not sure how I feel about fighting Agumon.

Will I even be able to have Veemon fight him when the time comes?

To be continued…


	12. Storm of Friendship

"Storm of Friendship"

**Hope you like it. Please review and enjoy this chapter.**

We were all sitting in the mining carts waiting until Izzy gave us the message as to where we would find Ken and Agumon.

"It's Tentomon!" Kari gasped making us all turn to see the bug flying over to us.

"All aboard! I just love riding trains. Where's the dining car?" He said getting in with the girls.

"An e-mail from Izzy." Cody said checking his D-terminal.

"Has he found them yet?" Kari asked.

"Apparently, Ken and MetlaGreymon have been seen south of here." The kid said.

"We're on the right track." Matt said.

"Well, technically, Matt, we're on the only track." Tentomon said.

"All right, Digidestinds, this time we'll get Agumon back for sure." Tai said pumping a fist with a determined look.

"There's no way that Ken can stop all of us. Ah, but, just in case, Tentomon, I need your help." Matt said.

"Now? I was gonna have my shell waxed." Tentomon said.

"I want you to go and search for Garurumon." The older blonde said.

"Garurumon, huh? OK, I'll be back in a flash." The bug said flying up and took off.

"Daisuke, what's up with you?" Matt asked when he saw me sitting in the corner of our cart quietly, my arms wrapped around my knees.

"Huh?" I asked looking up at him.

"You don't look too good." He said concerned as he kneeled down next to me.

"Are you OK?" TK asked jumping into the cart, both brothers sitting next to me as Veemon looked at me worried.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it." I said shaking my head as I leaned my head on my knees.

"Daisuke, a thing about being a Digidestind is you have to learn to trust others." Kari said.

I don't think I can tell them what I'm feeling right now.

The truth is, I don't know if I can fight Agumon without fear of him being destroyed.

I'm just scared for him and I know Tai will get mad at me if I say this and he'll start yelling at me and so will everyone else, even Matt and TK and that's what makes me sure I should keep my mouth shut.

"Come on, Daisuke. We talked about this before." The child of Hope said placing a hand on my shoulder while Patamon perched on Veemon's head.

I took in a deep breath, then let it out before I looked at the brothers.

"I'm just…really afraid that something will go wrong." I said making Tai's eyes narrow.

See, I knew that was gonna happen.

"So you're not even gonna fight? We need you to help us here." He said making me look into his eyes and glare.

"I never said I wasn't going to fight." I said.

"Then what did you mean?" he demanded as I stood up clenching my fists.

TK noticed that my emotions were getting to me and gave a worried loo, unsure of what to do or say.

"I was just saying that I feel uncomfortable about it. I've been doing things I felt uncomfortable about even since I first became a Digidestind. I had to deal with you and Kari treating badly for four years and I've about had it!" I yelled making the others all gasp.

"What are you talking about?" Tai asked.

"Daisuke, you need to calm down." Kari said.

"SHUT UP!" I screamed.

"I've had it with the both of you. Ever since you two first became Digidestinds, you left me alone and kept blowing me off for other people. I've had it with the two of you. The only reason I even tried to make friends again was because of TK. He's a real friend…unlike you two." I said looking at the Kamiya siblings.

Everything was silent around us all, Tai and Kari looking at each other deep in thought while Veemon grabbed my hand making me look down at him and smiled at the show of comfort he was offering.

"Hey, look at this." Cody said suddenly when our D-3s started going off.

"Mt D-3 just found a digi egg." He said.

"Someone hit the brakes." Yolei said and Hawkmon did as she said, all of us hanging onto our carts as it came to an abrupt stop.

We all got out and found that the signal was coming from a wall that had a mark carved on it and there was a large circular hole in the ground that had a black egg with the same mark on it, only it was blue and there was a lightning bolt shaped blade on it.

"Who could've carved that?" Yolei asked.

"Someone with a really big chisel?" TK asked.

"It kind of looks like my Crest of Friendship, but why would someone go to the trouble of carving that into the side of the wall?" Matt asked.

"I think the egg's in there." Cody said as his D-3 beeped.

"What's down there?" Tai asked when he saw that Veemon and I were staring at the egg in the hole, the others gathering around us to see.

"Looks like a flip flop with a bent nail in it." Kari said and I too notice that she and her brother were trying to keep their distance from me.

"I once had a tetnace shot." TK said.

"Yep, it definitely has the Crest of Friendship on it, all right. I wonder if it's meant for you, Matt." Tai said.

Moron, no it isn't.

The digi eggs belong to the kids who have the D3s.

It's kind of obvious.

"Or maybe it's meant for the one with the most friends." Matt said.

"Or with the least." I muttered making Kari look at me with a guilty look, but I ignored it.

"Someone should try to pick it up. After all, what's the worst that could happen?" Cody asked.

"Well, it could be a trap set up by the Digimon Emperor." Yolei said.

"I don't think it would be booby trapped. After all, it's emblazoned with the Crest of Friendship." Matt said.

"Then I think you should go for it, Matt." Tai said.

"Wish me luck, just in case." The blonde said as he walked into the hole.

We watched as he strained to pull at it, but it just wouldn't budge like I knew it wouldn't.

"No luck." He panted.

"Cody, why don't you give it a try?" Tai said to the boy as he nodded and Matt got up and came beside me, blocking my view from the Kamiya siblings.

"OK." The boy said as he tried to pick the egg up.

"You feeling OK?" Matt whispered to me.

I glanced at him, then looked down sighing in depression.

"I didn't mean to snap like that, but…I was holding my emotions in for four years and…" I trailed off as he smiled at me and wrapped an arm around my waist making me gasp and look at him as the others all tried moving the egg and failed.

"Don't worry so much. I'm sure Kari and Tai will forgive you, the question is; will you forgive them?" he asked.

My cheeks were burning red from the contact, but I tried to ignore the feeling as I thought over his words.

Could I really forgive them?

They're my friends and I care about them, but how soon would it take for me to allow them back into my life without feeling this tension?

Friendship is such a complicated and complex thing.

Matt and I both gasped when Tai stepped between us, the wild haired brunette giving the blonde a warning look.

"Daisuke, it's your turn." Tai said giving me a small grin.

I nodded and walked over to the egg feeling very nervous about it.

What if the egg rejected me?

I took in a deep breath as I kneeled in front of the egg, my fingers twitching as I slowly reached out to touch the egg.

Through my gloves I could feel a small electrical pulse from it and stared at it in wonderment.

"Daisuke? Hello?" the child of Love called.

I was about to lift it, but was stopped by a strange noise.

"What's that terrible noise?" Tai asked.

"It's hurting my ears!" Yolei cried as we all covered our ears to protect them from the sound.

We looked up and saw a large bee looking digimon flying down to us, the sound coming from its large wings.

It then cried out Deadly Sting, shooting out red stingers at us as we all jumped away from it so we didn't get hit.

"Watch its stingers!" Yolei yelled.

"Patamon!" TK cried making me look over to see the hamster-bat was on the ground, weak from getting hit.

"It's Flymon. The only thing worse than his Deadly Sting attack is the noise he makes while attacking. When I hear him coming I usually just dig a hole until he blows over." Armadillomon said.

"Let's do it." Veemon said to me and I nodded.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

He jumped up covered in flames and tried to hit Flymon, but he buzzed out of the way quickly.

"Hawkmon." Yolei said.

"Right." Hawkmon nodded.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" she called.

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Halsemon: the Wings of Love!"

Halsemon flew off and started swirling around in a tornado to take out Flymon, but the bug just evaded the attack again.

"Here he comes again." Matt said as Flymon started swooping down towards us.

The sound got louder and we all covered our ears again to block out the noise.

After it all stopped, we looked around to TK when he gasped.

"Patamon's gone." He said.

"Where'd he go?" Kari asked.

"Did he run away?" Matt asked.

"No, look up. There he is." Yolei said pointing.

We all looked and saw Flymon was flying off with Patamon in his claws.

"Help me, TK, help!" the little guy cried.

"Patamon, we'll save you!" the child of Hope called up to his partner worried.

"But how? He's getting away." Kari said.

"Patamon!" TK yelled as he started chasing after them, the rest of us running after him to help.

"I think we,re gaining." Flamedramon said.

Just then, we were cut off by MetalGreymon landing in front of us, the force shaking the ground and knocking TK and I off our feet.

"Where do you think you're going?" Ken's voice came from the top of the dino's head.

"MetalGreymon." Tai called.

"TK, Daisuke, get out of there!" Matt yelled.

We did as we were told, glaring up at the Emperor as he chuckled at us.

"Here's your new play toy, your Evilness." Flymon said hovering next to the Emperor.

"Patamon. Put him down!" TK yelled.

"No, I'm just getting started with him." Ken said.

"He's got more dark rings." TK said making us all gasp as Ken pulled out another spiral.

"What does he have planned?" the child of light asked.

"You can be sure it's something bad." Tai said.

"When I put this on your little friend here, I will have complete control over him and I can make him do anything I want. Do you hear that? I'm gonna make you do my laundry one piece at a time and then-"Ken was cut off from the talk he was giving by TK.

"I'll never let you get away with it!" he said.

"Don't interrupt me while I'm planning my evil deeds." Ken snapped glaring down at him.

Flamedramon snarled at him as he started powering up, but stopped when I ran over and clung to one of his arms.

"Wait! We don't want to risk you hitting Patamon." I said making him look down at me.

"I am such a hot head." He said apologetically.

"We have to separate Patamon and the Emperor." Halsemon said.

"Be careful guys." I said stepping away from my partner.

"I hate to leave so early, but I have some chores to take care of like taking over the Digital World." Ken said.

"There's no way we're gonna let you use Patamon to help you with your plan." TK said as Tai ran up.

"That goes for Agumon too." He said.

"That's really funny because I don't remember asking for permission." Ken said before he turned to Patamon.

"You really should have Flymon trim his nails back." Patamon said as he struggled to get out of his grip.

"Just hold still. In a few seconds, you won't remember a thing, except what it's like to be my slave." Ken said as he slowly brought the spiral closer to the hamster-bat and a sick feeling swelled inside my gut.

"Patamon!" TK yelled running to help.

MetalGreymon's metal claws started smoking and he shot at him, making Tai quickly run over and pushed him to the ground and away from the attack.

There was a growl as a streak of blue separated Ken from Patamon, Flymon looking around in confusion as the spiral the Emperor held was destroyed.

Garurumon then jumped down in front of us all, Matt running over to his partner.

"Nice going." He said.

"Garurumon, you came just in time." The original of Courage said s the wolf opened this mouth and the smiling hamster-bat jumped out.

"TK!" he cheered.

"Patamon, how do you feel?" TK asked hugging his partner.

"Kind of like a big piece of dental floss, but other than that, I'm fine." He said.

"Wow, TK really risked himself to save Patamon. Talk about a true friend." I said.

"Would you try to protect me if I was in danger, Dai?" Flamedramon asked and I smiled at the obvious answer, but deciding to tease him.

"Maybe." I said making him tense up with anger and shock.

"Maybe? Maybe?! How about definitely-and you were totally joking weren't you?" he asked as he calmed when he saw my smirk.

I laughed and hugged his arm.

"Of course I would. You're my best friend and I care about you too much." I said.

"Good." He sighed hugging me back.

"But don't ever scare me again." He said making me laugh harder.

"Oh, you guys are gonna make me cry. If you really want a test of your friendship I'll be more than happy to give you one. Prepare for the fight of your life. MetalGreymon!" Ken yelled at the Ultimate.

"Don't listen to him, MetalGreymon. Don't you recognize me? I'm your friend." Tai said as Matt mounted Garurumon and road up beside him.

"Garurumon and I are going to try and get those rings off MetalGreymon's arms." Matt said as Gururumon growled and charged at the dino, but MetalGreymon tried to step on them, making the wolf jump back to avoid getting squashed.

"Squash them like a bug." Ken said.

"Garurumon, that was close but we've got to attack him with all of our strength." Matt said.

"I'm afraid of hurting MetalGreymon." Garurumon said.

"We have no choice. If we don't use our full power, he'll crush us like grapes. Isn't that right, Tai?" the blonde asked his best friend.

"Go get him." He said nodding.

I looked at the large dino, unsure of what to do or say, but we had to do something.

"It's time to call in the Calvary." Cody said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" he called.

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Kari called.

"Gatomon armour digivolve too…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

Digmon used Gold Rush to hit the spiral, but MetalGreymon leaned away from the attack.

Nefertimon swooped in from the skies with Rosetta Stone, blasting the ground at his feet making him stumble back.

Halsemon then used Tempest Wing, hitting MetalGreymon in the chest plate.

"Careful, you'll hurt him." Tai said as his partner cried out in pain.

"Sorry." Halsemon said standing next to Tai.

"You did what you had to do. Don't worry about it." Tai said as Garurumon pounced up to get the spiral and started gnawing at it.

"You're getting annoying." MetalGreymon said as he threw Matt and Garurumon off.

Thankfully the wolf landed on his feet with his partner on his back, then used Howling Blaster, but missed the spiral and hit MetalGreymon in the face, making him cry out in pain.

"MetalGreymon, I'm sorry. We're only doing this out of friendship." Matt said as the dino tried to step on them again. MetalGreymon then powered up and used his Giga Blaster, making everyone run away as it came to us, but I tripped and fell to the ground.

"Daisuke!" Kari yelled.

I felt someone jump on top of me just as the missiles hit, the light blinding me as I closed my eyes.

When it was over, I opened my eyes again and saw that Veemon was lying on top of me making me gasp when I realized that he had taken the hit for me.

"Veemon!" I cried picking him up into my arms.

"Oh, V." I said as the tears came.

"Oh, boo hoo. How sad." The Emperor mocked.

"V, please wake up. I can't lose you. You're my best friend and I love you too much to have it all end like this." I sobbed hugging him to my chest.

"VEEMON!" I screamed just as my D-3 started glowing with a bright blue light that surrounded us all.

"What's going on?" Yolei asked.

Veemon groaned as his beautiful red eyes blinked open.

"Is it time for breakfast?" he asked.

"V!" I cried happily hugging him as my D-3 glowed brighter.

"Don't ever scare me like that again. The next time you wanna make me happy, just pick me some flowers, OK. You don't always have to risk your life." I said making him chuckle as he hugged me back.

"OK, I'll remember that." He said.

"Het digivice is responding to the new digi egg!" Cody said making me pull out my D-3 and look over to the egg as it glowed the same color.

The lights stopped as the egg lifted up by itself and started hovering over to where I was.

"What's it doing?" Kari asked as it rushed past her and Yolei.

"Look, it stopped right in front of you." Veemon said as it did just that.

"Take it. It's your digi egg of Friendship, Dai." He said smiling.

"My digi egg of Friendship?" I asked stunned as I took it, feeling that same pulse.

It didn't reject me.

Maybe…this is the sign I needed.

I really am capable of having friends and people to care about me!

I laughed in relief as I stood up, holding the egg close to me.

"I don't think I've ever seen something more beautiful than this." I sniffled whipping my tears away.

"Daisuke already has the digi egg of Courage, so how can she now have another one?" Cody asked.

"I think that that means that Veemon can become twice as powerful. We can win now." He said sharing a look with TK.

"Hey, that's cool!" Veemon said.

"Let's try it out then." I said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called.

My dragon was then covered in blue sparks as he transformed.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Raidramon: the Storm of Friendship!"

"I am Raidramon. As Veemon I used the digi egg of Friendship to armour digivolve. My Blue Thunder and Electric Bite attacks will annihilate my enemies." He said.

We all stared in wonder at the four legged dragon that stood before us all and I walked up to him, petting his head and hugged him.

"You look awesome." I said.

"Finally someone who can stand up to the Emperor." The child of Knowledge smiled.

Ken was staring in shock before he smirked.

"Show him who's in charge here." He said as MetalGreymon's metal claws shot out at us, but Raidramon jumped up and the spikes on his back shot out his Blue Thunder attack, blue and red sparks hitting the spiral.

We all cheered happily thinking that the spiral was destroyed, but the sparks cleared away to show that it was still there!

"It's no use. It won't come off." Matt said.

"Your weak attempts make me laugh." The Emperor laughed.

"Give up yet?" he asked.

"There's got to be a way to get through to MetalGreymon. Somehow." Tai said as I bit my bottom lip in thought and looked at Raidramon.

"Don't worry, Tai, we won't give up. We'll get him back for you." Matt said.

"What if we combine our attacks?" I asked making them look at me.

"Raidramon and Garurumon can work together to take the spiral off." I said.

"It could work." TK said.

I walked over to Raidramon and climbed up onto his back and hung onto one of his spikes.

"Let's go." Matt said as Garurumon shot off, me clinging to my dragon as he did the same.

"Good luck guys." Tai said to us.

Garurumon used his Howling Blaster, MetalGreymon stepping to the side to avoid it and Raidramon took a powerful jump up at the spiral, the gold and silver lightning blade on his head shooting out sparks at it, all of us watching in anticipation.

Finally, it broke!

"Look, it's off!" Matt said.

"WHAT?!" Ken yelled.

MetalGreymon started shirking as an Airdramon swooped down and caught Ken, escaping as Agumon was back to normal.

"I'm sorry we attacked you, Agumon." Tai said as he ran over to his partner and hugged him.

"I'm sorry too." Agumon said.

"I'm sorry that you're sorry." The brunette said.

"Well, I'm sorry that you're sorry that I'm sorry." The lizard said.

"Tell you what; I won't be sorry anymore and you won't be sorry either, OK?" Tai asked with tears in his eyes.

"Sorry." Agumon said with tears in his own green eyes.

"Daisuke, you saved the day. We thought you were wonderful." Kari said.

"Raidramon too." Yolei said.

I kept quiet as I ducked my head down, my cheeks burning in a blush from the praise.

"Daisuke." I heard Matt say before he jumped onto Raidramon's back and hugged me to his chest and ruffled my hair.

"You saved Agumon and you didn't even lose a single hair." He said.

"Knock it off or I'll sick my sister on you!" I whined as he laughed and stopped messing with my hair and kept his arms wrapped around me.

We all went back to the computer room and I was admiring my two digi eggs smiling happily at them.

"Daisuke, we really need to talk." Kari said making me look at her.

She and Tai both looked guilty as they stood there, the others standing behind them watching in interest.

"About what you said…you're right. We shouldn't have just ignored you like that over the years. We didn't know we even did it." she said looking close to tears.

"We're really sorry. I can't even begin to imagine how much it must've hurt to just have us all start to ignore you like that and you didn't even know why." Tai said.

"You must hate us." Kari said.

I sighed and walked over to them both, everyone watching as I did so.

I pulled the goggles off and then wrapped them around Tai's head, then snapped them.

"OW!" he yelped.

"I don't hate you guys. I was just really hurt and mad that you didn't even notice what you were doing. The truth is, whether we were close or not, I'd still worry about you two no matter what. I love you both too much. You were like family to me." I said.

Tai was rubbing at his red mark that was left from the goggles and Kari nearly threw herself into my arms for a hug.

"I'm so sorry! I love you too, Dai." She sobbed.

"OK, knock it off. You know I hate it when people cry." I said patting her back as my cheeks when tinted pink from the show of affection.

Tai walked over and hugged me from behind and placed the goggles back on my head as he did so.

"We're just happy to have the same old Dai back." He said.

"The whole lone wolf thing was a little depressing." Yolei said.

"Actually, now that I think about it, Daisuke's a lot like Tai because she's great at soccer and the leader." Gatomon mused rubbing her chin.

"She acts more like Matt if you can ask me. She even cooks too." Patamon said as the Kamiya siblings backed off.

"Part Matt?" TK asked.

"And part Tai?" Kari asked as the two shared a nervous smile.

"That's a very dangerous combination." The child of Hope said.

"No kidding." The cat and hamster-bat said.

I laughed at that as Demiveemon jumped into my arms and I hugged him to my chest.

Friendship.

Just has to be the best gift I could have ever gotten.

To be continued…


	13. The Good, the Bad and the Digi

"The Good, the Bad and the Digi"

**I'm happy to see that you all enjoyed the last chapter and I hope you like the rest coming in the future. Please enjoy and review!**

A few days later after I was done eating with my family I walked into my room, closing the door behind me and yawned.

"I think I ate too much." I yawned.

"You shouldn't eat too much in the morning." Demiveemon said making me give him a look.

"That coming from you is ironic." I said then walked over when I saw him holding my D-terminal.

"I swear, it's a shock you aren't the size of a Monochromon with the way you eat." I teased picking him up as he giggled, until my D-terminal beeped and he looked at the message.

"Biyomon!" he cried.

"What? You mean Sora's partner? What happened to her?" I asked taking the D-terminal from him as he hopped up onto my shoulders and I checked the message.

I gasped at it and then grabbed my D-3, Demiveemon hanging onto my shoulders as I ran out of the house and quickly made it to the school seeing Sora was at the gate waiting.

"Sora!" I called making her turn to see me.

"Daisuke. Where are the others?" she asked.

"They'll be here soon. Come on!" I said grabbing her wrist and leading her into the school.

We both sat down at the computer and started waiting them to hurry up.

A few minutes later, Yolei and Cody showed up and they had Santa Clause bellies.

"Hey, where are TK and Kari?" I asked them.

"Wasn't my turn to watch 'em." Yolei said as her jolly Santa belly shook and Poromon popped out, Upamon popping out from under his partner's shirt.

"No TK or Kari?" the lavender haired girl asked.

"Even if they were out of town, they could have e-mailed us." Cody said as I frowned in thought.

Where were they?

It's not like them to just be unknown like this.

"Maybe their batteries are dead." Yolei smiled.

"I swear, those two are in so much trouble when I see them." I muttered.

"We can't wait. Biyomon needs us." Sora said standing up from her seat.

"We'll just have to go without them." She said as we all stood around the computer with our D-3s.

"Right, let's see exactly where Biyomon's distress signal came from." Yolei said as she pulled up the map on the screen.

"There it is, got it." she said as an area surrounded with black squares blinked red.

"Now that we know where to go, let's get going. Got it?" I asked the others.

"Right." The children of Love and Knowledge said.

"All right everyone, digi port open!" Yolei cried doing that pose again and I sweat dropped again as we were all pulled through the gate.

As soon as we entered the lands, I hand to pull my goggles down to block out the sand from blinding me.

We were in the middle of a sand storm.

"How vulgar. I sense this place is a cultural desert." Hawkmon said.

"Did you say 'dessert'?" Veemon asked.

"This sand blastin' sure makes my shell look shiny." Armadillomon said.

Everyone stood together as we waited for the storm to pass and in a few seconds, that's what it did.

"Wow, this place looks like the Old West." I said fixing my goggles and got a proper look at the place.

"Where's that spire we saw on the monitor?" Cody asked as we looked around the sandy area that had trash around it along with the western styled huts that were further off from us.

"I don't see a control spire anywhere." Sora said.

"Let's go search for it then." I said and we all started walking.

"Fear not, Yolei, for I will guard you from whatever danger will be thrust upon us."Hawkmon said.

"How about instead of guarding my life, try finding us some cold water." Yolei said as we looked around the western area.

"Where's Biyomon?" I asked not seeing anything pink around here.

"She couldn't have gone far, Daisuke. She's here somewhere." Sora said when some upbeat piano music started playing.

"Where's that music coming from?" Sora asked looking around.

Well, we're in an old western town, so I'm gonna have to go with a saloon.

"It's coming from over there." Cody said and we all followed him as he started running off.

I was right.

The music was coming from a saloon.

We all walked in and saw that a piano was playing music by itself.

I never saw one of those thing before.

"It's a player piano. I wonder if anyone's here at all." I said.

"I don't know." Sora said frowning.

"You're at the right place. You're set just where ya are. You're sure to be happy here so says the mon behind the star." Someone said with a southern accented voice and we all looked around for who was talking.

We all looked to the bar where the voice was coming from.

"Howdy. Welcome digi-pilgrims to the safest town west of Sirius. They call me Stramon." A silver star shaped digimon wearing gloves and a cowboy hat said.

"Starmon is a law and order digimon who keeps the peace. But if you break the law, his powerful Meteor Shower will rain down with justice upon you." Hawkmon said.

"Now belly up to the boss so I can welcome all of ya with a cold mug of welcome milk." Starmon said as he slid some tall mugs of milk as we took our seats.

"Didn't spill a drop, did I? This is just my way of being neighbourly to strangers. So, here's to ya." He said.

"Just what is welcome milk?" Sora asked.

"It's 100% home organized moo milk, little missy. Welcome." Starmon laughed as he held his own mug and took a sip.

"Well, I am kind of thirsty." I said staring at my mug and licked at my dry lips.

"My mouth feels like a clothes drier filled with cotton balls." Yolei said.

"My tongue is a dusty tank trek." Armadillomon said.

"Thank you." We all said picking up our mugs and started drinking.

The nice creamy cold milk felt really nice from being outside in the hot, dusty desert, but I still couldn't help but feel as if something was off here.

"Huh. Tourists. You gotta love 'em." Starmon said as he paced behind the bar.

"Huh? Uh, Mr. Starmon, have you by any chance seen a cute little pink bird looking digimon named Biyomon around here?" Sora asked.

"Hmm. Did you say 'Biyomon'? That kind of rings a bell. Yep, yep. I got a feelin' I heard that description before." Starmon said as he snapped his fingers.

The wall where he was standing then all of a sudden flipping over tile by tile to show wanted posters of Biyomon on them, making Sora look at them in shock.

"Biyomon wanted?" she gasped running over to the posters to see them.

"What did she do?" she asked.

"Well, that digi-desperado is on the run from the Digimon Emperor. He's got a reward out for her, but they haven't caught her yet." Starmon said as he started pacing again and Sora smiled in relief at that.

"Well, she's hopefully somewhere safe by now, but I'll still feel a lot better when we find her. Mr. Starmon, sir, maybe you can help. You can tell us where she was last seen around here." The orange haired girl said.

"You bet right about that ma'am." Starmon chuckled as he started taking another sip of his drink.

"If Biyomon were in trouble, you would help her." Sora continued making him choke on his drink.

"As a law-mon, I know that you'll help her from the Digimon Emperor, right?" Sora asked.

"Well, there's something I gotta tell you." Starmon said sadly as he took his hat off and revealed a dark ring on his head and his blue eyes slowly turned red.

"Huh? He's wearing a dark ring!" we all gasped.

"Well, I knew that behind that tin star was just a gutless lowlife lackey of the Emperor with jelly for a spine." Veemon said turning up his nose as I gave him a look.

"Oh, really? And you didn't feel the need to tell us? And what did I say about name calling?" I scolded him.

"Looks like the jury's still out on Starmon. Still think he's a bad apple or a good one?" Armadillomon asked his partner.

"People are like milk. They can turn bad." Cody said.

Not really.

If milk turns bad, the stay that way and only get worse, but people have a chance to learn from their mistakes and become good again.

"You're right!" Starmon laughed as he tossed his hat up.

"You might think I'm lower than a snake's belly for saying this, but I do work for the Emperor and I got orders." He said.

"What's that earth reject doing now? Pulling wings off of butterflies?" Yolei asked sarcastically.

You want to know what I want to know?

Why are we just sitting here when we can be running or fighting?

"You can bet he's experimenting with something evil." He laughed with his back turned to us as I got up, the others following me.

"Earth reject. I gotta remember that one." Was the last one we heard before we were out of the saloon and running away.

All of a sudden, there were blasts coming from the sky, raining down on us as we tried to escape it.

There was a strong enough blast that made us all fly off of our feet and fall to the ground, hurt.

"Now you'll enjoy your stay." Starmon said as he walked over to us and then tied us all up with some rope he brought with us.

We were all a little weak from hunger and those hits, so we just let him drag us to the jail and threw us all in.

"Here's the rules. No cookies in your cell,

No loud music after 8:00 and no shucking oysters during month without an R. Enjoy." He said after he locked us in and walked away.

"Sora…" a weak voice called from behind us in the shadows.

"Huh? What was that?" Sora asked as we all turned to see something was there.

"Sora…" the voice said again.

"Biyomon!" Sora cried as she went over to the corner and tried, without her arms since they were bound, to bring the bird into her lap and comfort her.

Biyomon must have been in a real big fight if those wounds are anything to go by.

"I tried to get away, but I just didn't have the strength." She said.

"Shh. Don't talk. What happened?" Sora asked with tears in her eyes as she smiled down at her partner.

"Hmm. You just said 'don't talk.' Didn't you? I wish you would make up your mind." The bird said with tears in her own eyes as she cuddled up to her partner.

"'Kay, you can talk a little." Sora said.

"When I first came here to this town, I had no idea that it was under the control of the Emperor. I had been shot down by his flying dragons and needed food. I was tired and hungry and very thirsty. Then Starmon showed up and attacked me. When I woke up, I was in here." She said.

Veemon got up and used his V Head-butt, ramming right into the stone wall of the cell making us all wince at the pain he must have felt from the impact.

"I think I used too much V and not enough head-butt." Veemon groaned as he stumbled over to me and fell in my lap.

"Oh, my poor boy." I cooed smiling sadly at him.

"The wall's as hard as his head and just as thick." Cody said.

"You said it." Armadillomon said.

"But it should be easy for you to drill through that wall digivolve ino Digmon." Cody said.

"I'm too weak to do it." the armadillo said.

"I forgot. You haven't eaten." Cody said making his partner sigh sadly as he looked down.

"I could do something if I had food." He said.

"Boy, Yolei, I sure wish we had some snacks from your store." Cody sighed.

"I'll call my dad. He delivers." Yolei said making Sora and I give her a look.

"But Yolei, we're in prison in the Digital World." Hawkmon said.

"You're right. If it's more than five miles, there's a delivery charge." Veemon said making Sora and I sigh.

"Huh?" Biyomon perked up.

"What, Biyomon?" the original of Love asked.

"It sounds like a horse." The bird said.

We all then listened closely and heard the footsteps of a horse and then the neighing of one.

We turned to the door of the jailhouse, which had a poster of the Emperor on it and waited for whoever it was outside to come in.

"He needs some new shoes." The child of Love said.

"I said 'whoa!'." A male voice said from outside and the horse snorted.

"Never fear, the protector of justice is here." The male said kicking the door open and revealed a digimon with a cowboy hat, boots, two guns, jeans, a red bandana around his mouth and the middle of his body was a large gun..

"Holy guacamole, just who in tarnation are you?" he asked.

"Deputymon is a barrel chested digimon that shoots on the lip, but normally he's helpful and harmless." Armadillomon said.

We all gave him suspious looks, wondering if he was hiding a ring anywhere just like Starmon did.

"From the look on your faces, I feel like I squashed your favorite hat. What's your story?" Deputymon asked as he walked over to our cell.

"We got put in this jail for doin' nothing by your partner Starmon." Armadillomon said.

"Where's your justice?" the child of Knowledge asked.

"Yeah! That's all that's in here. Just us! Now that you can see it, where's your dark ring?" Veemon asked.

"See for yourself. I ain't got no ring." Deputymon said taking his hat off to show no ring.

"Nobody controls me, not even myself." He said as he continued undressing. Sora, Yolei and I groaned as we closed our eyes, not wanting to see this.

"There's no dark ring!" Veemon said.

"We're sorry to have been so suspious of you, Deputymon, but put yourself in our boots." Yolei said as we girls kept our eyes closed.

"There, ya see any rings now?" Deputymon asked.

"Got carried away." He laughed.

"We didn't see anything. Uh, Deputymon, are you here to keep us in jail or set us free?" Yolei asked as we opened our eyes to see him dressed again.

"No need to fret, lady. Soon you'll be free." He said.

"Yay!" we all cheered standing up.

"Course, I'm only freeing the girls." He said making us all turn to him confused.

Wanna run that by us again?

"I need card players, but not boys 'cause they cheat." Deputymon said making Veemon stare at him in disbelief at that accusation.

"Say what?" Cody asked.

"Did I mention I don't even cheat at 'Solitare'?" Veemon asked.

But that would leave Cody in here all alone with only the male digimon.

We can't just do that.

"Strictly womenfolk and that's final." Deputymon said.

"Did you ever hear of women and digimon first?" Armadillomon asked.

"Couldn't you find it in your heart to make an exception and let us all go just for the fun of it?" Cody asked.

"Come on, ladies only. Let's go." Deputymon said unlocking the door and opened it up.

"What is this? The petrified desert? I said let's go." He said when we just stood there.

"But we're not boys." Biyomon and Hawkmon said making me look at the hawk in confusion.

What?

Sor, Yolei and their partners walked out and were untied while I stayed in the cell.

"Hey, didn't ya hear me? Let's go." Deputymon said to me.

"I'm staying with Cody. Besides, I'm not good with card games anyway." I said.

He sighed and just slammed the cell door on me, and then walked out with the girls.

The boys and I listened as they got in the horse drawn carriage and drove away.

We sat down again, thinking about what to do when an hour later Starmon walked into the room humming a jaunty tune.

"Well, it's lunch time. Being a ruthless villain sure works up an appetite." He said opening his desk drawer to get his bento box.

"And after lunch, a little nap so I'll be my mean old self again." He yawned and then laughed as he turned towards us.

"What? They're gone!" he gasped, but we then walked out of the shadows of the cell to show that we were still there.

"Deputymon freed the girls. He said boys cheat at cards, so I stayed with Cody." I said.

"I imagine they're enjoying some delicious snacks right about now." Cody said walking up next to me looking very tired and hungry.

"That's it! I'm gonna pop that pot belly barrel!" Starmon yelled angered.

He then stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Armadillomon and Veemon were staring at the bento lunch drooling.

"Ah! Just look at that. His lunch." Veemon said.

"I can smell it. If I can just wrap my lips around that lunch, I could armour digivolve." Armadillomon said.

"I've got an idea." Cody said.

"What's your plan?" his partner asked.

"Pretend that these ropes around us are pasta and help yourself to all we can eat." He said.

"Or you can just gnaw the ropes off and I can reach over through the bars and get the keys that are right next to the cell door." I said making them all look at me.

"Well, there's that." Cody said making me look over at him with an encouraging smile.

"I'm sure your plan would've worked out just as well too." I said.

He smiled and nodded at me as our partners started chewing at the knot in the ropes and we were able to wiggle free.

Cody started untying Veemon and Armadillomon as I walked over to the cell doors and reached my arm out to the side, the tips of my fingers curling around the keys and pulled them closer to me.

I then started unlocking the door and opened it up, the digimon rushing over to the food and started gulping them down happily.

Cody and I smiled at each other as our partners ate.

"Just this once, it's OK to gulp your food. We've gotta help our friend." Cody said.

I ran over to the door to open I, but it was locked.

"We're locked in, so we're gonna have to dig our way out after all." I said making Cody nod.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" he cried.

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

"Cool!" the rest of us said.

Digmon walked over to the stone wall with his drills spinning and started drilling us out until the wall was blasted open for us to escape.

"All right." Cody said as we walked out and took in the fresh air.

"Let's move it." Veemon said.

"You got it." I said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Raidramon: the Storm of Friendship!"

I quickly climbed up on my dragon's back and then saw light from the sky.

"Let's move." I said and he took off towards the place where the fight was taking place.

He made it just in time to see Deputymon was on the ground weak and Starmon was about to attack the girls, Biyomon and Hawkmon standing in front of them with their wings extended in a protective fashion.

"Guys, we're here to help." I called as Ridramon jumped over them and went straight towards Starmon.

"That's where you're wrong." He said as he called down his Meteor Shower, the lights falling from the sky and hitting us, knocking me off my dragon's back as he turned back into Veemona nd we fell down to the earth.

Yolei and Sora ran and caught me as Biyomon and Hawkmon caught Veemon so we didn't get hurt too badly when we fell.

"Too much chocolate." Biyomon groaned from holding Veemon.

"I'll try to cut back." He said.

"Dai, digivolve me into Flamedramon. He's a better fighter." He said to me as the older girls set me down on my feet.

"Right." I said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

Starmon gasped with wide eyes as Flamedramon did a back flip in the air and prepared to fight.

"Starmon, you're fired." He said as he was covered in flames and attacked Starmon, the force of the flames making him shoot off far away looking like a shooting star.

He rammed into a building far away and it crumbled away to show that it was a control spire and it was tumbling down, being destroyed from the impact with the ground.

Later on, all of us met up with the de-ringed Starmon as the sun set behind us.

"Well, at least now you're not under the Emperor's control anymore." I said.

"It was a tough job, but someone had to do it." Sora said.

"I guess I just went loco. I hope there are no hard feelings, Biyomon." Starmon said to the bird.

"You don't have to apologize. I'm just glad that things are normal now." Biyomon smiled.

"Whoo hoo! Tarnation, it's good that I caught ya." Deputymon said as he appeared on the fallen spire.

"You didn't think all of ya were gonna skedaddle without an adios and playing some more cards, did ya?" he asked.

"We wouldn't do that." We said and then groaned in displeasure as we fell to our knees.

We then all went back to the saloon and started up a card game.

When we finally did get home, Sora and I went straight to the Kamiya home since we lived in the same building as them and then started hitting Kari and Gatomon with pillows.

The next day, Sora and I met up with TK when he was on his way to school and hit him with our book bags and he ran away, crying for help.

That'll teach the children of Hope and Light to not answer their D-terminals when we needed them.

To be continued…


	14. His Master's Voice

"His Master's Voice"

**OK, this chapter is dedicated to Kyogami for making a suggestion. I hope you guys don't mind. Please enjoy and review.**

Last night I had that same nightmare again and Demiveemon was really worried about me, but I just brushed it off with a smile.

My hands were holding onto my book bag straps tightly as I tried to calm down, pushing the frightening feeling away from me.

But I just kept getting this feeling that something was going to reach out and grab me again like in my dream.

All of a sudden, I felt something touch me and I gasped feeling fear as I turned around.

"Stay away!" I yelled but relaxed when I saw it was only TK and Kari that were there and they both looked stunned by my outburst.

"Oh, hey guys. Sorry about that." I said with a smile as my cheeks heated up.

"It's fine. But are you sure you're feeling OK? You're not feeling sick are you?" Kari asked as the bell rang.

"Oh, man. We gotta go. Didn't you hear the announcement? If we're late, we'll have to scrape gum from the bottom of desks." TK said and the three of us ran off to our classes.

Man, that was close.

I hope I don't have a freak out like that again.

We all put our stuff away, changed our shoes and then went to our math class in record time.

I sat at my desk, trying not to fall asleep as the teacher went on with the problems on the board.

"Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see x=y, y=14 and lickity split Q=36. Now, isn't that exciting?" Mr. Yamasaki asked.

I was close to falling back to sleep, but I needed to stay awake because I was afraid to have the dram about that dark world I had seen.

My vision seemed to be fading and I felt like a cold mist was cooling my skin.

I gasped when the room started to lose color and fog appeared, this wave of depression making it hard for me to breath.

I felt like my lungs were closing in on me and started shaking in fear.

What is this?

Why is this happening?

"What is this?" I asked when the class room completely disappeared.

My legs were then soaked and felt numb making me look down to see that I was sitting at my desk in the middle of an ocean of black water.

"What is this? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Kari! Veemon! TK! Tai! Matt!" I yelled looking around for anyone, but all I saw was the wide open ocean and fog.

It was like nothing existed here at all and I was going to be stuck here forever.

I tried to force my body to move, but it was no use.

My body was totally numb, the coldness seeping deep into me until it started burning.

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!" I yelled.

"Daisuke!" a familiar voice called making everything around me fade away and return back to the class room.

I looked behind me and saw that TK was standing up in his seat, everyone staring at him in surprise and confusion while Kari was looking at me in worry.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Looking over at her, my head then started pounding and the nights of insomnia finally took over me and my body started falling from my seat making everyone gasp.

"Daisuke!" Kai, who was sitting behind me gasped as he quickly got up and caught me before I fell.

"Are you OK, Daisuke? Do you want to go to the nurse's office?" Mr. Yamasaki asked as everyone watched as Kai helped me back up in my seat.

"Yes, sir. Thanks Kai." I said to my teammate as I wobbly stood up and started walking out of the room, but could hear the voices of the students behind me.

"What was that?

"I've never seen Daisuke like that before?"

"I wonder if she's sick."

"She looked like she hasn't been sleeping."

"Maybe she pushed herself too hard at soccer."

I closed the door behind me and then took in a deep breath as I started walking down the hall that seemed darker than usual.

What was up with that?

It was like I had no control over myself?

Why does this keep happening to me?

Maybe this is all just in my head.

An image appeared in the corner of my eye and I stopped walking as I looked over and saw a younger version of myself and Kari.

She was standing over me as I sat on the ground, holding her pink ascot in her hand while I was looking at her in surprise with my knee bleeding.

That was the very first day I had met Kari.

I was running after the soccer ball when some mean girl tripped me and I scrapped my knee on a rock when I landed.

_I hissed in pain as I gently touched my knee, unsure of what to do._

_The girl who tripped me laughed and then walked away, calling me a freak before she walked off to join her other friends._

"_Are you OK?" someone asked._

_I looked up and saw a girl dressed in punk and yellow running over to me with concern in her cherry colored eyes._

"_Oh, no. You're bleeding. Where's the teacher?" she asked looking around._

_When she didn't see one, she just sighed as she untied her ascot and bent down in front of me._

"_Here, let me help you." She said as I stared at her in wonder._

_She was a total stranger to me and yet there she was helping me._

"_There. That should do it for now." She said smiling._

"_You're pretty quiet there. My name's Hikari Kamiya, but everyone calls me Kari. What's your name?" she asked._

"_Um…D-Daisuke. Daisuke Motomiya." I stuttered as I blinked at her._

_Kari laughed as she held out her hand for me to take._

I shook my head and the image faded away.

Why is this happening to me?

The sound of a drop of water hitting the tiled floor made me gasp as the world around me seemed to ripple.

"Hello? Is anybody there?" I called but no one answered back.

It far too quiet and dark than it was supposed to be.

Slowly, I turned around, looking down the shadowed halls with narrowed eyes.

The sound of water dripping on the floor came again and I stood frozen in place as the room grew cold.

OK, this is starting to turn into a horror movie and it's freaking me out.

OK, I'm losing my mind here because I think I just saw something down the hall.

Gasping, my eyes locked onto this dark figure with glowing red eyes hiding behind the staircase that led up to where the computer room was.

It moved and I screamed before I started running.

Forget the nurse; I'm getting out of this place.

I didn't stop running until I was outside of the school, safe from whatever I had seen back there, my feet leading me to a bench in the back of the building.

I collapsed on the bench, panting hard and tried to catch my breath again from all of the running I had done.

"W-what the…hell is…going on here?" I asked as I sat down to try and sort out my thoughts.

"Why do I keep seeing these things? It's like someone is calling out to me and trying to pull me away from here and…"

My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my palms as the anxiety took its toll, draining me of my energy and strength.

For the rest of the morning I stayed right where I was, fading into the back ground.

When I was a kid…my grandmother used to sing me a song when I had trouble sleeping, so maybe if I sang it would help calm me down.

"_Angel of Darkness_

_Angel of Darkness_

_The world is in your hand_

_But I will fight until the end_

_Angel of Darkness_

_Angel of Darkness_

_Don't follow your command_

_But I will fight and I will stand_

_When Darkness falls…pain is all_

_The Angel of Darkness_

_Will leave behind_

_And I will…fight_

_The love is lost_

_Beauty and light_

_Have vanished from the Garden of Delight_

_The dreams are gone_

_Midnight has come_

_The Darkness is our new kingdom_

_Hey yeah_

_Angel of Darkness_

_Angel of Darkness_

_The world is in your hand_

_But I will fight until the end_

_Angel of Darkness_

_Angel of Darkness_

_Don't follow your command_

_But I will fight and I will stand_

_Hunt goes on_

_Deep in the night_

_Time to pray_

_Down on your knees_

_You can't hide from the_

_Eternal light_

_Until my last breath_

_I will fight_

_I will fight_

_I will fight_

_I will fight_

_I will fight_

_Now realize_

_The stars they died_

_Darkness had fallen in Paradise_

_But we'll be strong_

_And we will fight_

_Against the creatures-"_

"_Of the night."_ Someone else sang making me jump and turn to see who was there.

I calmed down when I saw that it was Matt who was standing there with a small grin on his face.

"M-Matt? What're you doing here?" I asked blushing when I realized he must have been watching me while I was singing.

"You know, TK and Kari have been looking all over the place for you and have been worried." He said walking over to stand beside me as I looked up at him.

"They also said you almost passed out in class. Are you feeling any better?" he asked.

I kept quiet as I looked down at the ground, my hands clasped in my lap.

"Did you have that nightmare again?" he asked making me gasp and look up into his knowing azure eyes.

"You need to talk to us about this. Just what happens in your nightmare that makes you feel so much fear?" he asked.

"I-I don't know." I said averting my gaze.

"I at first had it because I thought it meant I was being swallowed in the darkness from the depression of the fact that I wasn't meant to have friends, but then I got the digi egg of Friendship, so I knew that it couldn't be true. I mean, if that were it, then the dreams would've stopped, right? But then…they started up again a few days ago and I haven't been able to sleep properly. I'm too afraid to sleep half the time. Demiveemon worries about me, but I try to play it off as nothing so he won't worry, but it just might be freaking him out even more." I said softly as I felt the bench move as he sat down next to me, the heat radiating off of his body and warming my side.

"I thought that maybe if I just ignored it that it would make it go away, but I think it's only making it worse. I could've sworn that I saw something in the school coming after me. I just…I don't think I can fight it anymore." I said sadly.

"Daisuke, you're one of the strongest people I know." He said placing a hand on my shoulder.

"Whatever it is that's coming after you, you can fight it. If those things you say are digimon, then you can fight." He said.

"I can't, Matt. I'm just not strong enough like Tai and Kari are. I mean, it's the Darkness that's coming after me. The only thing that can beat it is the Light. The harder I try to fight it, the more it seems to get me and it scares me even more." I said.

"Stop that!" he yelled at me as he stood up frowning.

"Listen here, Dai, I'm not gonna just sit here and listen to you talk like this. You have plenty of people here who care about you and we won't let you just fade away into the Darkness. I'm not going to let you fade away into some other world or something just because you're scared. I care too much for you to just let some monsters take you away from me!" he yelled.

I looked up at him in shock at his words and he seemed to have realized what I said and blushed as he looked away before he took in a breath and turned back to me.

Did he just say…he cares about me?

My cheeks were burning right now at what he said as we just stayed staring into each other's eyes, the sounds of birds and kids on the soccer field filling in the silence.

The bell then rang making us both jump and look away, my cheeks probably the same shade of my hair by now.

"I-I should get to class." I said standing up.

"Yeah, I better get back too. The teacher won't be too happy about me being late." He said.

We then separated and I went off to my next class, which was English that I had with Kari.

As soon as she spotted me, she rushed over and surprised me with a hug.

"I'm so happy you're safe. I thought you completely disappeared. TK and I went to the nurse's office to check on you and she said you never showed up, so we started looking all over the place for you. Where did you go?" she asked in a rush.

My lips curved up into a small smile as I returned the hug.

"I was outside. Thought maybe the fresh air would do me some good." I said and pulled away from her.

"Oh, that's a relief." She sighed.

The teacher then came in, so we took our seats.

During lunch, I decided to just go home and go the OK from the nurse, so here I was just walking out of the school yard when I felt this strange pull.

There was that voice calling me.

I walked across the road, a car honking at me as I went, my mind sort of shutting down on me as my body moved on its own.

The voice was calling out to me again, telling me to go to the beach.

I stood there looking out to the lake as I felt my body getting pulled away.

"Dai!" someone called.

"Dai, are you OK? What's happening to you?"

It was Demiveemon.

I wanted to turn back around and go to him, but some force was keeping me frozen and focused on staring out into the crystal blue water.

My eyes felt heavy and were drooping, soon enough I gave in and closed them.

The warm air turned cold and my eyes snapped open, fear gripping me as I saw that I was here again.

The beach with the dark ocean and the light house that shone that black light.

"Not again." I groaned.

I started walking around to get a better look at the place and pulled out my D-terminal, trying to send out a message to the others, but there was no signal at all.

I was in a maze of wooden fences that led to the forest, or at least that's what it looked like from where I was standing.

"This place is creepy. Why was I even brought here? What did I do that was so bad that I was brought to this place?" I asked as I put my D-terminal back in my pocket.

It's safe to say that this isn't the Digital World since I'm still in my purple tank top with the gold heart on the front, brown shorts and black shoes.

When I got out of the maze, I saw that it really brought me out to a different part of the beach that had a cave with the forest area above it.

"It's really smart to walk into a cave in a world filled with Darkness, but it might just be my chance to get out of this place." I said as I started walking over to it.

I walked down into the dark cave that had a bit of light cast.

"Daisuke…Daisuke…" someone called out to me.

"Hello? Is anybody in here?" I called my voice echoing around me.

"Daisuke…" multiple voices groaned making me stop and gasp.

"Help us…help us…" the voices said as I saw a group of red eyes hidden in the dark ahead of me.

"Get back! I play a lot of soccer and I have one mean kick and I won't hesitate to do it." I warned.

One of the figures stood up.

"Help us…" he groaned.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

"You guys don't look so well." I said as they groaned in pain and misery as I tried to get a better look at them.

There was a dark spiral on their arms.

"Just what are you guys? Are you digimon?" I asked.

"Digi…mon…I don't know if we're digimon, but I know we're Scubamon. We have big flippers for swimming deep in the ocean. We have no idea how we got down here or how long we've been in this awful tunnel." One of them said reaching his arm out and my eyes softened.

"Oh, you poor things." I said kneeling down in front of them.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"We don't remember. One day we were serving our under sea master and the next minute we were here and we feel terrible." Scubamon said.

"This is awful. Who would do something like this? Can't you go back to the ocean?" I asked.

"I wish that we could, but a dark man came into our Master's kingdom and put these dark spirals on our arms that stole our strength and made us his slaves." Scubamon said making my eyes narrow.

"The Digimon Emperor." I said.

"That's why we summoned you. You are our only hope." He said.

"What? How can it be me? I'm not the child of Light or Hope." I said.

"It doesn't matter. You were the one who answered our calls. You have to help us. You are very powerful enough to free us from the dark spirals. We've used the last of our strength to get you here. Please. Help us return to the ocean where we can serve our Master." Scubamon begged as I looked over each of them.

I just didn't know what to do.

A part of me wanted to help them, but there was this other nagging part of my mind that was telling me to be careful around them.

Who was this Master of theirs anyway?

"I don't know if I can get those things off." I said.

"Help us…" they all echoed until finally I sighed and crawled closer to the Scubamon who talked to me and placed my hands on his arm that had the spiral.

"I'll try, but I don't know if I'm strong enough to get it off." I said.

Just then, Matt's voice rang in my head, the things he told me filling my head and I felt my courage grow from it.

Time to stop doubting myself and have faith.

If I just believe in myself, maybe I'll be lucky enough to have a miracle happen.

At that thought, small golden light that looked like fireflies shone around my hands making the Scubamon all exclaim in wonder and the ground shook.

The ceiling was caving in, so I stood up, the gold lights fading away.

"Come on everybody, we need to get out of here!" I yelled as they stood up.

"Get up, come on, let's go!" I yelled leading them out, then stood at the mouth of the cave waiting until they were all out first before I escaped.

There was a screeching sound that made me look up and saw the shadowed form of Airdramon.

It was completely black and gray just like everything else in this world and it faded away into the fog.

"That creature is a servant of the Dark One who put these rings on us." Scubamon said.

"The Digimon Emperor. It's hard to believe he would do something like this." I said as Airdramon appeared again and blasted out black flames at us, so we all ran away to avoid getting hit.

"We're sitting ducks here. I can't fight without Veemon. I've never felt this helpless in my entire life." I said falling to my knees.

"I feel so…I need my friends. Tai. Veemon. Kari. TK. Yolei. Cody. Sora. Matt!" I called out hoping that some miracle will happen and my friends will hear my call and answer me.

There was yelling and I looked over to see Matt, TK, Patamon and Veemon falling from the sky and landed on the cliff above the cave.

"V! Matt! TK! Patamon!" I cheered standing up as I felt so happy my heart would burst.

I ran over to them, waving at them.

"Dai!" Veemon called.

"Guys, I'm so happy to see you. I missed you so much." I said with tears in my eyes.

"Stay right there." Matt called as Airdramon roared making them look up at the dragon.

"Time to rock, Patamon." TK said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" he cried as green light sparkled in the area.

"Patamon armor digivolve too…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

TK mounted his partner and they flew up to fight Airdramon, the fog blocking them from view, but black flames still hit the ground.

"Quick, Dai. I have to armour digivolve right now." Veemon said as he and Matt joined me on the beach with the Scubamon.

"Right. It's time to end this nightmare. I'm done with being scared of this place." I said standing up and gripped my D-3.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called as orange light flooded the area.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

"Hey, there's a control spire in that lighthouse!" Matt called.

"Destroy it!" I called.

Flamedramon jumped up and charged at Airdramon as Pegasusmon flew over to the lighthouse and destroyed the spire.

My dragon hit Airdramon with his Fire Rokcets, the Pegasusmon joined in with his Equis Beam, making Airdramon swerve around.

Finally, Flamedramon was covered in gold light and his normal coloring returned as he charged at Airdramon and destroyed him.

"Nice job. This battle's just a day at the beach." TK called down.

I laughed as Flamedramon slowly floated down to where I was and I ran over to him, hugging him.

"Oh, V, I missed you so much." I cried as he hugged me back.

"I was so scared when you disappeared. I didn't know what to think." He said as I looked up into his teary red eyes.

"I'm sorry. But we've got to help the Scubamon." I said.

He nodded as he pulled away from me and sent out small blasts of fire, breaking off the spirals and their eyes turned back to normal.

"Great job." Matt said.

Suddenly, the Scubamon groaned as they started turning into these smokey creatures with creepy yellow eyes and stood up tall.

"Much better." The first said.

"Now that's what I call a red eye deduction." The second said.

"Wait a second! You guys called me here to help you and I did. What else could you want?" I asked as the first reached out to me, just like in one of my nightmares.

"Let her go, you creeps!" TK yelled.

"Don't touch her!" Matt yelled.

"Come with us child. You'll be our new bride. We need you to create strong offsprings to fight the Dark One." The first creature said as I struggled to break his grip on me.

"No! I refuse! Now let me go you gilled freaks!" I yelled kicked out at them.

Flames then blasted at them, separating us and soon enough Matt wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest for protection while Flamedramon stood in front of us, sparks crackling around his claws as he still glowed gold.

"But we thought you would like to be with us. I guess we were wrong." The creature said as they all walked backwards and started disappearing in the dark ocean while I held onto Matt.

"Beware, child. Our Master can sense your power too and he will come for you." Was the last thing it said before they were all gone.

We were all quiet for a few seconds and I sighed as I leaned into the older teenager.

"I am so ready to go home now." I sighed feeling totally exhausted.

"It could be worse. We could be scraping gum at school." TK joked weakly and I cracked a smile at him gratefully.

Flamedramon picked Matt and I up as TK mounted Pegasusmon as we started flying up to where a golden light was shining down from where the spire once stood.

"Last one home's a rotten digi egg!" the child of Hope called as he flew up and my dragon took a massive leap into the air, the light sucking him up.

"Thanks for coming after me, you guys. I really appreciate it." I said.

"No problem, Daisuke. I know you'd do the same for just about anyone of us." TK said.

"We're happy you're safe. Tai and Kari'll be happy to hear that." Matt said.

We left the dark world and were in a field of colorful flowers in the Digital World, the sun feeling just amazing as it shone down on us.

We went back home to Odaiba and the brothers walked me back home, Kari and Tai waiting for us and they both came rushing to me.

I'm just really happy to have so many great friends in my life that care about me and I care about them too.

To be continued…


	15. The Samurai of Sincerity

"The Samurai of Sincerity"

**Here is the next chapter. I'm glad you all liked the last chapter and to answer Gogglegirl's question of why the Scubamon didn't call for Kari too, it's because they knew Daisuke had a similar power, but stronger with the additions of two Crests. If they couldn't convince Daisuke to join, then Kari wasn't going to come. I hope that answers it. Please review and enjoy!**

Nervously, I walked into my sister's room and saw her placing her newly bought make-up on her vanity.

"H-Hey, Jun?" I called.

She looked up when I called her name, wondering what was wrong.

"Dai, are you feeling OK? I haven't you heard you stutter like that since you were a kid." Jun said frowning.

"Well, I have something import I need to talk to you about, but I'm not sure how you'll react to it." I said twisting a lock of mahogany hair since I left my hair down today.

Jun walked over to me and took my hands, pulling me over to her bed.

We might not get along most of the time, but she's still my sister and we'll be there for each other no matter what, but…

After what I tell her, she might not be too happy with me.

As we sat down on the bed, she gave me a look that clearly said 'spill it'.

"What would you say…if I told you…I sort of have…c-crush on someone." I said.

It was quiet for a few moments before Jun squealed in delight and pulled me into her chest.

"Oh, finally! I've been waiting for this day to come for so long! Tell me, who is this guy? Is it Tai? Oh, maybe TK. Tell me. Tell me tell me!" she said pulling away as she beamed in excitement.

"A-actually…it's…um…Matt." I said blushing in shame.

She kept quiet as she took this information in.

"Well, it looks like we're rivals. May the best sister win." She said with a friendly challenge in her tone.

I gasped and looked at her in astonishment.

She was just fine with it?

That's a surprise.

"You're really fine with it? I mean, I like the same guy as you." I said.

"Yeah, but this is the first time you ever came to me for advice on a guy. Matt's a real catch and he seems to care about you. But I won't let you get away with a hunk like that so easily. So good luck catching him." She said.

**(The next day…)**

The rest of us were in the Digital World doing to usual when Yolei picked up the trace of a digi egg nearby and she sent a message to Izzy to tell him we were going to keep looking.

"I can't walk another step. I gotta eat something now." Veemon whined as he fell down and his rump.

"Yeah, I'm getting kind of hungry too." I said as my stomach rumbled from hunger.

"But we're very close to finding the new digi egg." Yolei said.

"When we find that digi egg, I'm going to eat it." Armadillomon said.

"You'll do no such thing and besides, your cholesterol's too high." Hawkmon stated.

Kari giggled as she and Gatomon shared a look, the cat looking exasperated.

"Well, if we wanna eat, we'll have to go back." Kari said.

"Sounds good to me." I said as the others nodded.

"So long digi egg." Cody said.

"Hey, look!" TK called suddenly making us all look over.

"On the other side of the lake, I think it's a restaurant." He said pointing across the lake.

"A restaurant?!" Veemon exclaimed jumping up happily.

"Hurray!" the others cheered.

We all ran around the lake and went inside the dinner, taking in the wonderful scent of the cooking food.

"Would you like to sit at the digivolving or non-digivolving section?" the owner, a large egg shaped digimon with yellow eyes and green dino legs asked.

We all just took our seats and ordered whatever looked good to us and ate.

"That was delicious!" Veemon and I said as we sat back in our seats after we were done.

"I'm going to recommend this restaurant to all my friends who dine in the Digital World." Yolei said.

"Yeah, me too." Cody said.

"What's wrong, TK?" Kari asked the blonde making us look at him as he scanned the area with his azure eyes thoughtfully.

"Something about this place is really bothering me. I feel like I've been here before and it wasn't good." He said.

"Maybe the last time you were here you ordered the wrong thing." the child of Light said.

"Excuse me, waiter, we're ready for our check, please." Yolei called.

"OK, hold your horses. After all, I've only got one shell." Digitamamon said as he walked with Yolei and Hawkmon to the chase register and the rest of us looked at the magazine racks.

"What does our bill come to?" the lavender haired girl asked.

"87 digi dollars. Plus tip." Digitamamon said.

"Huh?" Yolei asked.

"What's the problem? Don't you have any money?" Digitamamon asked.

"Heh. We don't have digi dollars, but we have plenty of-"

"Forget it." Digitamamon cut her off.

"Huh? But our money's just as good." Yolei insisted.

"Since the Dark Masters left, we only accept digi dollars!" Digitamamon yelled making us all walk over to the two.

"What's the problem?" TK asked.

"The lunk headed waiter won't take my money." Yolei stated making me sweat drop.

Seriously, she's gonna insult the guy?

"I see you're being your usual blunt self." Kari muttered.

"I'm just trying to be honest." Yolei said.

"I think you kids are trying to skip out on the bill." Digitamamon accused.

"I told you, we have 87$." Yolei said.

"Only digi dollars or the Digi Express card." He said.

"That's it. I'm not gonna recommend this restaurant to anyone." Yolei said with her temper rising.

"Good! I don't want any Human World deadbeats in here. No wonder the French detest tourists." Digitamamon said as Yolei was nearly growling at him with a clenched fist.

"Now are you going to work off your bill, or do I have to call a cop?" Digitamamon asked.

"I think I've heard something like this before." TK said.

"If we work here, we'll be late getting home." Cody said with Armadillomon sitting on his head.

"Can't we just pay it the next time we're here?" Veemon asked.

"There won't be a next time. You're not allowed in here ever again! Now get in the kitchen and start washing dishes or I'll-"

"Fear not. I'll pay their bill." Someone said making us turn to see a blonde haired, blue eyed American teenager was there.

"How sweet! Prince Charming." Yolei gushed with huge hearts in her eyes.

"Who are you?" Kari asked.

"This is Michael. He's a friend of mine I brought with me from America." A pink haired girl said as she popped out from behind the blonde.

"It's Mimi!" we all exclaimed.

"Oh, Mimi, it's so good to see you again." Yolei smiled.

"What are you doing here in the Digital World?" Cody asked.

"Izzy sent me an e-mail saying there was a digi port open in America, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to come visit everyone. And since Michael's a good friend of mine, I thought I'd bring him along." Mimi said as Palmon walked in with a tadpole looking digimon.

"And I want everyone here to say hello to a good friend of mine, too." Palmon said.

"Pleased to meet you. My name's Betamon." The digimon said bowing.

"Betamon is really cool. He lives in the water and uses his Beta Slugger attack to wipe out his enemies." Palmon said.

"Hey Palmon, are you sure it's OK if you're here?" Kari asked.

"What about the area you were protecting?" TK asked.

"Oh, no problem. Tentomon said he'd watch it for me if I brought him back a souvenir t-shirt." Palmon said.

"I don't understand something, Mimi. How are you able to bring Michael to the Digital World?" Yolei asked.

"It's kind of obvious, Yolei. He's a Digidestind just like us, right?" I asked making Mimi nod as Michael pulled out his small light blue digivice.

"That's right and his digivice is the same kind as mine and the others." Mimi said as we all went to sit down at the booths.

"So he became a Digidestind in America at the same time our original group did in Japan." Mimi said.

"Tell us, Michael. Are there anymore Digidestinds in America?" I asked leaning over the top of the bench where Yolei, Cody and their partners were sitting.

"And tell us how you became a Digidestind in the first place." Cody said.

"And tell me you're single." Yolei said with a dark pink blush and smile while Cody and I gave her a look.

"All I know is everything happened four summers ago when I first saw Gorillamon in New York. I thought it was simply another ape climbing the Empire State building." Michael said.

"That's the same time Myotismon was taking over Tokyo." TK said.

"TK's right." Kari said.

"My, that's strange. I wonder if that means we all had an encounter with the digimon at the exact same time." Michael said making my eyes widen as I thought back to four years ago when my family was taken by those ghosts and were thrown to that vampire and white cat.

Now that I think about it…

I looked over to Gatomon with narrowed eyes.

Could she have been the exact same one from four years ago?

"It's possible. That's when I was on that air plane that had to make an emergency landing in the water. I didn't know it then, but that's when I saw my first digimon." Cody said.

"Then that means that was a group of Bakemon that kidnapped my family. They barged into our apartment and pulled us out, leading us to the center where all those kids were. I saw that vampire and was face to face with him and that cat…that was you, wasn't it?" I asked Gatomon.

"I thought you looked familiar." Gatomon said as everyone looked at us.

"My parents told Jun and I to never mention it again after that day, even the fight between that giant and those colorful lights." I said.

"You saw all of that? But I thought everyone was under Myostismon's spell and were sleeping." TK said.

"Who could sleep through all of that?" I asked looking down with my eyes narrowed.

"I wish I could say that summer was as terrifying for me as it was for all of you guys, but it wasn't cause nothing happened. Although, I did send a bunch of e-mails during the battle with Diaboramon." Yolei said.

"So then everyone was involved somehow." Mimi said.

"It's like we're all connected." Palmon said.

"But there's still one question." Digitamamon said as he walked over to us.

"WHO'S GOING TO PAY THE BILL?!" he yelled.

"Don't worry about it. The entire meal is on me." Michael said.

Wow, what a nice guy.

"Wait a minute!" TK gasped standing up in his seat.

"Now I remember where I saw him. He used to be one of Myotismon's henchmen. He made Matt and Joe work in the kitchen here. He got really mad when Matt asked if he could get half priced on his meals." TK said as we all followed Michael as he went up to pay.

"I can't believe you used to be one of the bad guys." Yolei said to the digimon who was blushing in shame.

"All right, I admit it. I was a rotten egg, but that was in the past. After the Dark Masters were all defeated, I knew I had to break out of my shell. I've become a whole new mon." Digitamamon swore.

"We're all very proud that you changed your ways." Kari smiled at him with her fellow pink lover.

"Don't you feel a lot better about yourself?" Mimi asked gently.

"Well, now that you mention it, it is kind of nice making an honest living." Digitamamon said.

"It seems to me you're still one of the bad guys after the way you treated me." Yolei said.

"Come on, Yolei. Everyone gets a little cranky. He says he's changed, I believe him." Mimi said in defense of the egg digigmon.

"I guess you're right." The child of Love sighed.

"Sometimes it's easy to get cranky with you." TK said making me cover my mouth to hold back a chuckle.

"I feel pretty bad about how I treated you last time." Digitamamon said sadly making Yolei look at him thoughtfully, trying to figure him out I assume.

"It's OK, Digitamamon. I'm sure you're not a total loser anymore." She said making my shoulders shake in suppressed laughter.

"Huh? I don't want your pity. I want your money. Fork it over now." Digitamamon said mad about the small insult he had gotten.

"Relax, don't get upset. She was just trying to make you feel better, right Yolei?" Mimi asked trying to be the peacekeeper.

"Uh, yeah." The lavender haired girl said.

"Besides, we always intended to pay the bill. If you would have been more patient, we could have avoided this whole thing." TK said.

"You're right, I'm sorry. My brain's been scrambled lately. I've got to look at the sunny side. I've got my job, I've got my health and someday I might even have friends. Tell you what. Forget the bill, it's on me." Digitamamon smiled and I could have sworn I felt one of my digi eggs pulse at his words.

Weird, but it felt nice, like when I first truly became friends with TK.

"You know, Mimi, I admire you because no matter who you meet, you bring out the best in everyone. You're really special." Michael said smiling at the girl.

"Plus I saved you some digi dollars." She said to him and they both laughed.

"Looks like someone has a crush on Mimi." I said with a grin.

Mimi really is a sweet and sincere person, it's no wonder Michael likes her.

I bet she even has a couple of other boys after her, too.

The ground then began to shake making us all look around.

"What is going on?" I asked as I went outside to check it out, the others following after me.

"Over there." I said seeing the trees across the lake move and a large gorilla digimon with a cannon for one of his hands came out looking pretty cranky.

"It's Gorillamon! Gorillamon was the digimon I saw in New York. Watch out for his Energy Cannon attack, it'll drive you bananas." Michael said.

"He's got a dark spiral." Yolei pointed out the black interlocking rings on the gorilla's arm.

"I thought that the dark spirals only work on Ultimate level digimon." I said confused.

"If they can control Champion level digimon too, then there might be different kinds." Cody said as Gorillamon aimed his cannon at us ready to fire it off.

Before we could duck out of the way of the blast, Digitamamon jumped up and took the hit for us, getting blasted far off away from us.

"Digitamamon!" Mimi cried in worry.

"Get that spiral off before he causes anymore trouble." I said as the gorilla did Tarzan yell as he beat on his chest and I pulled out my D-3.

"Please, allow me to handle this." Michael said stepping up beside me as he pulled out his own digivice.

"OK Betamon?" he asked his partner.

"OK." Betamon chirped as the digivice glowed green along with the little guy as he dived into the water.

"Betamon digivolve too…SEADRAMON!"

A large sea dragon emerged from the water after the evolution was over.

"Wow, Michael. Seadramon's your digimon? I still get chills remembering his Ice Blast and Ice Winder attacks." Mimi said.

Gorillamon and Seadramon snarled at each other as the gorilla tackled the dragon into the water.

"Now that they're in the water, Seadramon will win." Michael said.

A few minutes later we saw bubbles and gurgling coming from the lake.

"He's in trouble." The America said worriedly.

"Palmon, you better digivolve and help Seadramon." Mimi said.

"Ready when you are." Palmon said.

"Palmon digivolve too…TOGEMON!"

Gorillamon was then throw up out of the water and came sailing down to where Togemon was, the cactus quickly punching him with her Light Speed Jabbing until she destroyed the spiral and Gorillamon fell down to the ground, exhausted.

"Togemon, you did it!" Mimi cheered as Seadramon surfaced and roared in victory.

"Victory at last." Michael smiled as the Champions went back to their Rookie levels and we crowded around the freed gorilla.

"Sorry we had to treat you so rough, but it was the only way to get that dark spiral off you. You should be safe from now on, but try to stay away from the Digimon Emperor." Mimi said kindly to Gorillamon.

"Thanks." He said before he stood up and walked off.

"Without that dark spiral, he doesn't seem like a bad little monkey after all." Palmon said.

"I don't think any digimon is born evil, but when they get those dark spirals on them, they're not responsible for their actions." The pink haired girl said as the America stepped up beside her.

"How do you get them?" he asked.

"Remember when I told you about the Digimon Emperor? He captures the digimon and makes them his slaves." She said to the frowning boy.

"Hmm. I can't believe it. Why would a young kid want to take over the Digital World when he could be playing polo or practise the violin?" Michael asked.

I always wondered why he would want to do something like this too.

What could have happened to make him do this?

Did the Dark Ocean get to him like it tried to get me and succeeded in turning him?

There has to be a logical explanation for why a normal kid would want to do such terrible things.

"To him it's a hobby." TK said.

"Do you want to know what my hobby is, Michael?" Yolei asked dreamily.

If I get that way over Matt, someone just kill me.

"Boys don't count, Yolei." Veemon joked making her frown at him.

"Who asked you? Hey! Where's Digitamamon?" she asked making us all look around.

"He tried to protect us and now he's gone. He could be all alone somewhere scared and hurt." Mimi said worriedly.

"Don't worry. Kari and I will go off and look for him." The child of Hope said making their partners nod.

Soon enough the two were taking off on the backs of their armour Celestials to go look for Digitamamon.

"I'm sure they'll be able to find him in no time." Mimi smiled to her American friend.

"I hope so." Michael then gasped making us all look over as a large egg rolled over to us.

"Is this fast enough?" the egg asked.

"Digitamamon! Are you OK?" Mimi asked relieved.

"Yes, no thanks to you." He answered.

"We're so glad you're back." Mimi said.

"Yeah, well, don't be because now I'm going to make you pay." Digitamamon said opening his eyes to reveal that they were red.

Uh oh.

Looks like he involuntarily purchased a new set of jewelry.

"Who wants to be destroyed first?" he asked.

"But Digitamamon, we're your friends." Mimi cried running over to him.

"Ha!" he scoffed.

"You tried to protect us." Mimi said.

"Mimi!" Yolei called making the pinkette stop.

"Careful, he's acting differently now." She warned the older girl.

"You're egg-actly right. Before I was soft and runny, but now I'm hard boiled." Digitamamon said glaring at us.

"I knew it." Yolei said with her fists clenched.

"Nothing can penetrate my shell and when I pouch my enemies with my Nightmare Syndrome attack, their minds get cracked." He said.

"Watch out, Mimi!" Michael called.

"Now, Yolei?" Hawkmon asked his partner, who nodded to him.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" she called.

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Halsemon: the Wings of Love!"

Digitamamon then charged at the child of Sincerity, but Halsemon jumped in front of her, taking the hit and getting knocked to the ground.

"We better help!" Veemon said as Cody and I shared a look.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" we called.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

Flamedramon shot out his Fire Rockets at Digitamamon, but his shell protected him from the flames.

Digmon then used Rock Cracking, trying to break through the shell, but couldn't get it to work.

"I need an Egg Cracking attack." Digmon said.

"None of our attacks are working on him." Flamedramon said as he and the two other armours stood in front of the Champion.

"Wait!" Mimi cried running in front of them, her arms held out in a protective fashion.

"You guys have to leave Digitamamon alone right now." She said.

"Why?" Flamedramon asked.

"Digitamamon, listen. You're being controlled by something evil. Remember what you said to us in the restaurant? You're not like that anymore." Mimi said as she faced him.

"I'm not being controlled by anything. The one in the restaurant was a fake. This is the real me." He said.

"I refuse to believe that." Mimi said.

"Then it's your problem." He said as we ran to stand behind our pink haired friend.

"Mimi, stand back, let us attack him." Yolei said.

"No, I'm sure if I just talk to him, he'll come around." Mimi said confident.

"But Mimi, he's evil." The lavender haired girl said.

"I have to try." Mimi said making Yolei give her a conflicted look.

"Think back to the restaurant. Do you remember when you said that you hoped to have friends? Well, today is that day because we're your friends." Mimi said.

"Friends?" Digitamamon asked softly.

Looks like she was getting through to him, but his resolve hardened.

"No! That was just a trick so you'd let your guard down, just like when I said forget about the bill. Which reminds me, you still owe me 87 digi dollars!" he yelled.

"I don't care how rough and tough you try to act on the outside, deep down inside, I know you're not evil." Mimi said with a soft smile.

"Quit trying to butter me up. What do I look like; a piece of toast?" he asked.

"Stop pretending you don't wanna be friends, otherwise you wouldn't have tried to protect us." Mimi said.

"You think I'm pretending?!" Digitamamon asked as he then tackled the pink haired girl to the ground, making us all gasp at the show of violence towards the kind hearted girl.

"Are you OK?" Yolei asked as she and Palmon knelt down beside Mimi, the lizard/plant holding her partner in her arms.

"I'm all right. He didn't mean it." Mimi said shocking Yolei and Digitamamon that she was still protecting him.

"Please, Yolei. Don't hurt him. I know you can get through to him." Mimi said.

"But he's a phony." Yolei said.

"It doesn't matter. Talk to him." Mimi said.

"It won't be easy, but I'll try." Yolei said and stood up to go face Digitamamon.

"Oh, so you want a piece of me too? You think you'll do any better than her? I'll knock you for a loop." Digitamamon threatened making Yolei grit her teeth and stood up, anger clear in her eyes.

"I don't wanna hear another word from your mouth!" she yelled.

"Digitamamon, you're the rudest digimon I've ever met. At first I thought you were just an obnoxious waiter looking for a tip, but when you told everyone you had a change of personality, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. But when you pushed Mimi to the ground, it was absolutely the last straw." She said walking closer to the egg.

"All she was trying to do was make you our friend and how did you thank her?" she asked.

"But-"he was cut off.

"By viciously attacking her without any cause." Yolei continued not letting him talk.

"Mimi doesn't have a mean bone in her body and you didn't see that."

"But-"

"I want you to know that I won't tolerate that kind of behaviour any longer." Yolei said stopping right in front of him.

"You're one to talk! You're the one who wanted to be friends and then called me a phony. You're the phony!" Digitamamon accused.

"OK, I admit it. I have a problem judging others by my first impression of them. I see a cute looking boy and I instantly fall in love. I never stop to think what kind of person they might be. They could be really cool like TK or a total jerk like Ken. Well those days are finally over! From now on, I promise to be as sincere with people as I possibly can!" she yelled her vow.

Just then, the ground in front of her glowed a pretty green making Digitamamon back off in shock.

"Was it something I said?" she asked as an oval green shaped egg with a purple ninja star on the bottom hovered in front of her.

"It's the new digi egg." Cody said.

"It's got the…Crest of Sincerity on it." Mimi blinked as Yolei took the egg.

"It must have responded to Yolei when she started to talk so sincerely about her feelings." The child of Knowledge said.

"It's my second. I've got two digi eggs." Yolei said.

"Then let's use it." Halsemon said making his partner nod as he turned back into Hawkmon.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Yolei cried.

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Shurimon: the Samurai of Sincerity!"

"I am Shurimon. As Hawkmon, I used the digi egg of Sincerity to armour digivolve. My Double Stars attack is double trouble." He said as he used his attack on Digitamamon, but couldn't break the shell.

"Not even you can penetrate my shell. Nightmare Syndromer!" Digitamamon yelled as this black creature thing shot out at Shurimon.

"Protect Yolei. I'll take care of Digitamamon." Shurimon said as he jumped up into the battle.

"Don't let it get through!" Digmon said as he and Flamedramon jumped in front of us, stopping the Syndromer from getting to us.

"What's he looking at?" Digitamamon asked.

"I see the dark spiral. It's inside his shell." Shurimon said from the sky as he used his Double Stars, a huge ninja star hitting him inside the shell.

"Hey, watch out! You almost hit me in here!" he yelled.

"Pegasusmon, Nefertimon. Get him." Shurimon said as the Celestials appeared.

"He's trying to get away!" Kari yelled.

"Not if we have anything to say about it." TK said as their partners used their Golden Noose, tying the digimon up.

"Now to take care of that dark spiral." Shurimon said as he used his attack again and destroyed the spiral, making Digitamamon cough out the black pieces of the spiral.

"He coughed up the spiral!" Yolei said as the Syndromer faded away.

"That egg is over easy." Yolei said pumping a fist.

**(Later…)**

"He's waking up." Mimi said as we all stood around Digitamamon.

"What happened?" he asked as he sat up.

"You had a dark spiral in you." Mimi smiled softly at him.

"Oh, you saved me." He said.

"Actually, Yolei was the one." Mimi said looking at her new successor of Sincerity.

"What do you mean it was me?" Yolei asked as Digitamamon stood up and walked over to her.

"I want to thank you, Yolei." He said.

"Huh?! Well, there's no need to thank me, but I do want to apologize for those things I said about you earlier." She said.

"I'm the one who should be apologizing." He smiled at her.

"From now on, I promise not to judge a book by it's cover." Yolei swore.

"And I promise not to put all my eggs in one basket." Digitamamon said.

"Yeah, that's great. Anyway, Mimi, thanks to you, I'm gonna be totally honest with people. Especially boys and I won't be friends with then just because they're cute." Yolei said.

"Great, then neither will I." Mimi smiled not seeing this weird yellow digimon sneak up on her and poke her shoulder to gain her attention.

"Oh, Mimi!" he sang as a pink mouse popped up on his head as she looked at them.

"If you don't care about looks, how'd you like to go on a date with me?" yellow dude asked making her glare at him.

She then gave him one hard punch, making all of us gap as he sailed across the lake.

"I'LL TAKE THAT AS A NOOOOO!" he yelled.

"Ohh, now I know what to do when someone asks me out on a date." Yolei gushed.

"Uh, more like what to do to a guy who can't take a hint." I said sweat dropping.

**(Later…)**

"Well Michael, it was nice meeting you. I hope we'll get to see you again soon." I said to the American as the sun set from behind the forest across the lake.

"Thanks, I feel the same way. Mimi's always telling me stories about how great all of you are and now I know it too first hand." He said.

"Oh, before I go. There's one thing I wanted to do since I got here." Michael said as he stepped closer to Yolei.

"Yolei, I want to ask you something." He said holding out his hand to her as she looked at him curiously.

"Would you like to go out on a date with me sometime?" he asked her.

She was quiet for a bit, then smiled happily at him as she took his hand.

Then, Michael, Betamon, Palmon and Mimi left to go back to the portal to return to New York.

"Goodbye, Michael! Friday night's good. Or any other night works too." The child of Love and Sincerity giggled as she waved them all off.

To be continued…


	16. Big Trouble in Little Edo

"Big Trouble in Little Edo"

**Here is the next chapter, I hope you all like this chapter. I'm also happy to hear that you guys like the story.**

"Demiveemon, hold still!"I scolded.

I had decided to take a bath with my little dragon, but he kept giggling as I tried to wash him.

Oh, it might seem weird since he's a guy, but he is my partner…and I was wearing a bikini.

"I have to clean the dirt off your toe nails. What've you been doing? Skating on a skillet? Hold still!" I said.

"I can't help it!" he giggled.

"I still have to wash under your arms." I giggled as I tried scrubbing him with the luffa as I held him to my chest, the berry scented bubbles covering me up to my shoulders.

"Not under my arms! Just let me be stinky!" he cried.

"No way! I'm trying to get my first boyfriend. I can't have your stink scaring him off." I said.

He then got out of my arms and tackled me down into the tub, water sloshing over onto the floor.

"Let's see how you like it! Kitschy kitschy coo!" he said as he tickled my sides making me laugh.

"Hey, knock that off! I'm supposed to be giving you a bath!" I shrieked.

It was a good thing my parents had the TV blaring in the living room on some comedy channel that they were laughing at or else they would be suspious about what was going on in here.

When we were done, I was dressed in a pair of yellow shorts and tank top and was resting in bed when my D-terminal went off.

"_Make sure you get lots of sleep. You'll need it for when we go to the Digital World._

_-Yolei"_ the message said.

"Better snooze or we'll lose." Demiveemon said as I turned out the lights and cuddled up under the covers.

(The next day…)

"It's about time, Daisuke. Let's get moving." Yolei said as I finally made my way into the computer room dressed in a pair of jeans, black flats, a silver tank top and my hair was let down with the goggles around my neck.

Everyone else was wearing different clothing too.

"Sorry, had a meeting with the soccer club." I said joining them.

"I'm kinda worried. The Digimon Emperor has really started to move faster." TK said.

"I know one thing, he's not afraid of us or he wouldn't keep fighting us after losing all those battles." Kari said holding up a finger.

"Look." Yolei gasped rushing to a computer.

"This is what we're talking about. We need to take the spin out of his wheels and fast." She said typing away to reveal all of the black areas.

"I agree. We have to do something soon. We can't let him get the best of us." I said standing at her side, frowning at the screen as the black spots increased right before my eyes.

"Yeah, he's plotting something big. I can feel it." Cody said.

"He may have the brains, but we have the brawn. We can at least take one of those areas back from him." TK said making us all nod.

I would've preferred having brain too since it helped with making plans.

What is it with boys and always thinking with their brawn?

We all stood in a line, each holding our D-3s out to the computer.

"We're gonna teach that Digimon Emperor a lesson once and for all! Digi port open!" Yolei yelled as we were covered in light and pulled into the portal.

We landed in an old town that looked like it was out of the feudal era.

"The dust in the air is making my whiskers twitch." Gatomon pouted as she wiggled her nose.

"This place is weird." Armadillomon said.

"Not to mention old." Patamon said.

"It's reminiscent of the samurai era back in ancient Japan." Hawkmon said.

"It could be a film set from an old TV show." Kari said.

"My dad watched one of those last night." Yolei said.

"I think this is definitely the Digital World. See that?" Cody said pointing off to the distance where we saw a dark tower over the roof tops of the houses.

"It's a control spire. That's a sure sign." TK said.

Just then, there were these sounds from the huts and glowing red eyes appeared from dark corners of homes, alleys and the windows of houses.

Great, it's an ambush.

"What was that?" Cody asked.

"Yeah, red eyes give me the creeps." Yolei said as we all stood together in a group.

"This looks bad." TK said as he and I backed up to each other, standing back to back as we watched the slaves of the Emperor.

"What're they waiting for? They already have us surrounded." I said confused as I felt the duos of Light, Love and Sincerity, and Knowledge bump into me as they watched the eyes.

A few seconds later, a house's sliding doors were thrown open and these mushroom shaped digimon ran out.

Then these plant like lizards jumped out of the river from under a bridge that was nearby us.

The rest all came out from the alleys and such, surrounding us easily.

"Me and my mouth." I groaned.

"We're Floramon. We may look like flowers, but watch out! Our Rain of Pollen will make hay fever seem like a walk in the roses." The lizard/plant digimon said.

"We're Mushroomon. You definitely don't want us in your vegie omelet. We may be cute as buttons, but our Fungus Cruncher will leave you scratching your head." The mushrooms said.

The digimon then all started firing off their attacks at us, so we turned and started running off to avoid the green mist and the purple mushrooms that were used like bombs that were thrown at us.

"Stand back! Move it! Coming through!" Veemon yelled as he started beating down the Floramon and Mushroomon.

"You're no match for me, Gatomon!" a Floramon cried as she ran at the white cat.

"Oh, yeah? Cat's Eye Hypnotism." She said as her eyes were covered in a pink light making the plant/lizard freeze in place and accidentally hit herself with her pollen attack.

"I'm too tired to play anymore. I think I'll take a nappy nap." The Floramon said.

"They're under his spell." Gatomon said.

"There are so many of them, how can we possibly free them all?" Kari asked.

"Help you guys! These fungazoids won't leave me alone!" Yolei cried making us all turn to see her running away from the group of Mushroomon and Floramon.

We all then took off running too.

"Come on, you can hide down here!" someone called to us down an alley way.

TK, who was ahead, stopped and looked down the alley.

"Gekomon?" he asked as we saw the frog was looking out of a sewer hole with the lid on his head.

"Hurry it up before they find ya." Gekomon said.

"We can escape down below." TK said as he followed the Gekomon down and we all soon after climbed down.

The place smelt bad, but at least we're away from those slaves.

Yolei and Shurimon were both still up there, but soon enough they came down and Gekomon led us off to safety.

**(At the palace…)**

We were led to an old style shogun like palace where we were seated in front of a huge red and yellow frog that had two horns on his shoulders and a purple and red thing on his head that was his hair I think.

"On behalf of the Gekomon, we thank you from the bottom of our horns. If you hadn't shown up and come through for us, we'd still be servants of the Digimon Emperor." ShogunGekomon, the huge frog said.

"We appreciate what you did for us. You saved our lives." Said the Gekomon who helped us.

"Yeah." Said one of the Otamamon.

"You guys are a lot nicer than the last time I saw you. You sure were evil, not that I'm blaming you. I'd be pretty mean too if I had a dark ring around me. But that's all over with now and we're friends again. Tell me, is this where you guys are living? Down here beneath the ground?" Yolei asked.

"I'm afraid that's true. It's the only safe place to be." Gekomon said.

"Can you guys give us the inside scoop on where the Digimon Emperor is hiding these days?" Veemon asked.

"He hasn't shown his face around here yet." Gekomon said waving his webbed hand.

"He's been incognito. The dark rings flew right in here and brainwashed everyone in sight." Otamamon said.

"That means the Digimon Emperor knows where ya are and he can find you again." Armadillomon said and the digimon around us had tears in their eyes.

"We don't wanna be the Digimon Emperor's slaves again. It was way too awful." Gekomon said.

"ShogunGekomon, do you have any ideas?" he asked their leader.

"That's simple my little friend." ShogunGekomon said.

"Uh, what do you mean by that?" Gekomon asked as everyone stopped sobbing.

"Mmm….mmm…mmm well…mmm…." The red frog said as he crossed his arms as he thought long and hard.

Did he have a plan or not?

"We sleep!" he said falling to his side with an arm under his head to be used as a pillow.

We all anime fell at that in disbelief.

"Oh, sure. That'll help." Gatomon groaned.

ShogunGekomon then went up to his room while we all stayed downstairs to try and come up with some sort of plan for ourselves.

"First, before we do anything else, we have to destroy the control spire." Cody said.

"Well, that's the easy part." I said sitting up properly as Veemon smiled at me.

"Yeah. Besides, we're not talking about what you call big muzzled digimon, ya know? Most of them would rather toss a salad instead." He chuckled.

The ground then started shaking, making us all look around at the sudden quake.

I'm getting a bad feeling about this.

"It's an earth quake!" TK yelled.

"I hate earth quakes! They remind me of my brother waking me every morning!" Yolei cried as she crouched down with her hands over her head.

The quaking them stopped and Hawkmon placed his wing on her back to calm her down.

"Don't worry, Yolei, you can relax. It's all over now." He said.

The girl looked up as Gekomon slammed the shogo doors open and ran in looking frantic.

"The Shogun's gone nuts! He's tearing the place apart! We don't know what to do!" he yelled.

"What?" we all asked.

We all went outside and sure enough, ShogunGekomon was stomping around the place, destroying everything in place while croaking.

Man, I knew something bad was going to happen.

He then stopped and looked towards us.

"Oh no, look! He's got a dark spiral! I've seen him in action before. ShogunGekomon is an Ultimate digimon. You may think he toots his horn, but he can play a note so flat, it'll flatten everything around him." TK said.

Gekomon climbed up to where the black bell was and started banging it, warning the others.

"Gekomon, evacuate or you'll get stepped on!" he said.

Gekomon and Otamamon were running with their bags backed, trying to save themselves from the danger.

Sadly, one Otamamon was stuck under a wooden bucket.

"Ahhh! Someone, help me! I'm stuck, I can't get out of here!" she cried as ShogunGekomon got closer.

Veemon ran over to help.

"I gotcha!" he said lifting the bucket off.

She giggled and hugged him as Gekomon ran over to them.

"The Shogun's being controlled by the Digimon Emperor. We're in trouble." He said as we spotted the control spire on him and the red eyes.

"He's big and obnoxious, but we like him. Can ya do something?" he asked us hopefully.

"Of course, just leave it to us." TK smiled at him as Patamon flew up in front of his partner.

"TK, step it up. He's got us all surrounded." He said as the Mushroomon and Floramon came charging in.

"V, let's do this." I said pulling out my D-3.

"I'll with ya." He said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I cried.

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Raidramon: the Storm of Friendship!"

"Take him down, Patamon." TK said holding up his own D-3.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" he cried.

"Patamon armour digivolve too…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Kari cried.

"Gatomon armour digivolve too…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

"DIGIARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Cody cried.

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Power!"

"Let's join the troops, Hawkmon." Yolei said as she held her D-3.

"Of course." He said.

Before they could though, a large ninja star with a letter on it came sailing in, almost hitting the lavender haired girl if her partner hadn't pushed her to safety.

The rest of us joined in on the fight leaving them to deal with it.

Kari and TK mounted their flying digimon, taking to the skies to attack from there to get the spiral off of ShogunGekomon.

Pegasusmon hit him with Equis Beam while Nefertimon used her Cat's Eye Beam, but the green and pink lights had no effect on the spiral at all.

"I can't believe it's not working." The child of Hope said.

"He didn't even yawn." The child of Light said.

"And my parents said vegetables wouldn't kill me." I said as the Mushroomon got ready to throw their little bombs at me.

"Need a lift?" Raidramon asked as he jumped in front of me, slapping the digimon behind him down with his tail.

I smiled and pulled myself up onto his back.

"Great timing." I said.

The Mushroomon got up and started throwing their bombs at us, but Raidramon countered them as he shot sparks out of his mouth.

Cody and Digmon were taking care of the Floramon while the group of Celestials took care of ShogunGekomon and the control spire.

Just before Raidramon could fire off another attack, there was an explosion making us all look off to see the spire was destroyed by the king frog himself.

The slaves dropped down and their spirals shattered.

With them free, Raidramon started jumping up the roof tops with me clinging to his spikes as Digmon walked over with Cody to help the others out and Yolei and Shurimon were busy with some ninja digimon.

"It's all yours now, Dai!" TK called down to me.

"Got it, TK!" I called back.

Raidramon reared back as he charged up his Thunder Blast and sent it right at ShogunGekomon, electrocuting him while Digmon started drilling down into the earth.

"You know the drill, Digmon." Cody said.

"I'll make him eat dust." Digmon said before he fired off his Gold Rush.

The attacks all weakened the frog and he fell down into a crater, tired.

"You did it!" Cody cheered.

"Hey, where's Yolei?" I asked looking around for the missing girl.

"Hawkmon's missing too." Raidramon said.

"Where could they have gone?" I asked feeling worried.

ShogunGekomon was now snoring away, but the spiral was still attacked to his hair thing as the two flying digimon swooped down to the ground.

"Gee, it looks like the big guy's all crashed out." Kari said.

"That's rare." TK said.

Shurimon then came in holding Yolei.

"You're back, Yolei! We were worried about you. Where've you been?" Cody asked smiling up at the girl.

"Just here and there." She smiled.

"You've been so kind. We'd appreciate it if you could take the dark spiral off his head." Gekomon said.

I bit my bottom lip as I thought about this, unsure of what to do.

Then I had a flash back of the fight with MetalGreymon.

"Raidramon!" I said.

"On it!" he said jumping up.

He used his Electric Bite, snapping his jaws down on the spiral and it shattered.

With that done, we all went back home, Kari and I walking off to our building while TK went with Yolei and Cody to their building.

"So why were you late with the soccer club?" Kari asked.

"Huh? Oh, well, ever since we became Digidestinds I have to keep canceling on meetings and stuff. It's really getting on Coach's nerves and he says that if I don't stop, he'll have no choice but to kick me off." I said.

"What? That's terrible. You've been playing soccer for years and all of the wrok you did? He can't just do that." She said.

"Actually he can. It's not like I can say 'I've been missing practice to go to another world to free monsters from the control of the Ken guy that we played against because he's really evil and no one else can do it'." I sighed sadly as I looked down.

"Next week is our last game before the season is over. If I miss it, then I'm off of the team." I said.

"Then you go to it." Kari said.

My head shot up and looked at her, seeing the seriousness that was shown in her cherry eyes.

"It'll be all right if you miss a trip to the Digital World for a game. It's important to you and you worked too hard for the position you have right now." Gatomon said.

"You guys are sure about this?" I asked.

"It's only fair. They had a day off and just fooled around while we were thrown in jail and forced to play poker for hours!" Demiveemon whined.

Yeah, he wasn't going to let that go any time soon.

"If we get into any serious trouble, we'll message you. Don't worry about it." Kari said.

"But I'm the leader. I have to be there for you guys." I said still not convinced in leaving them alone for one mission.

"Daisuke, I'm serious. It's OK. You're also the captain of your soccer team and they needs you just as much as we do." Kari said with a reassuring smile.

I sighed and sent her a smile.

"Thanks." I said.

We both continued on our way home, and as soon as we passed Kari's door, the scent of her mother's cooking wafted through.

It was liver sticks.

"Uh…you wouldn't happen to be OK with two more mouths to feed tonight, right?" Kari asked.

I laughed at that as Demiveemon giggled.

Looks like Tai will have to suffer through Mrs. Kamiya's cooking alone.

To be continued…


	17. 20,000 Digi Leagues under the Sea

"20,000 Digi Leagues Under The Sea"

**OK, here is the next chapter. I hope you guys like it. Please enjoy and review!**

Today was the day of the big soccer match that we were having before the season was finally over.

Kari had spoken to the others about it and they had all agreed that it was fine if I skipped one day of kicking Ken's butt to help my team out.

I was changing in the girl's room, Demiveemon with me in case of any trouble and we needed to go help the other Digidestinds out.

"This is going to be a great game." Demiveemon said.

"Yeah, it is." I said tying my hair up.

"Then why aren't you smiling?" he asked.

"I guess…I'm just worried about the others. I know they can take care of themselves, but…something bad can still happen." I said sitting down on the bench in front of the lockers.

My dragon hopped up into my lap and gave me a reassuring smile.

"It'll be OK. I'm sure of it." he said.

When it comes to Demiveemon's smile, I can't help but return them.

They were infectious.

Gathering him up in my arms, I kissed his head and headed out of the locker room to go do some stretches with my teammates.

As I walked out, I saw something I wasn't expecting.

Tai, Matt, Izzy and Sora were all sitting in the bleachers talking.

I wonder what they're doing here.

Sora seemed to notice me, so she waved making the boys look over and smile.

"Hey, Dai! Over here!" Tai called waving me over.

I ran over to them seeing as the guys from my team weren't done changing yet.

They usually goof off when they're alone in there and the coach was talking with his wife until the other team got here.

"Hey guys. Why are you here?" I asked them as Demiveemon jumped out of my arms and crawled up onto Matt's shoulder.

"We thought we'd come cheer you on." Sora said.

"We're also here in case the others need some help." Izzy said making Tai put him in a headlock.

"So what team are you going up against?" Matt asked with a smile.

"It's a team from Okinawa. They're supposed to be really good, too." I said.

"I'm sure you'll do fine." Sora said.

"Daisuke!" someone cried.

I yelped as I was tackled by Takeshi, Kai, Satoshi and Rei.

"You're back!" Takeshi cried.

"We missed you." Rei said as they all pulled away.

"Where have you been all this time?" Satoshi asked.

"Sorry, I've been busy with my friends in the computer lab." I said blushing at the attention I was getting.

Was it just me or was Matt glaring at the guys right now?

Looking out of the corner of my eye, I saw that his left hand was curled into a fist as Demiveemon was sitting perched on his shoulder while Izzy and Tai gave the blonde smug looks.

What was that about?

"As long as you're here now. Did Yamaki give you the playbook for this game?" Kai asked.

"Got it all memorized, so I hope you guys did too. This game is going to be really tough so we have to go all out. No fooling around. Got it?" I asked sternly.

"Yes ma'am." Rei and Takeshi saluted.

The whistle sounded and we all ran over to Coacj Yamaki to do our stretches for the game and waited for the team to get here as the bleachers filled up.

Jun was here too with one of Yolei's sisters and I noticed that as soon as she spotted Matt, she rushed over and sat down by him and clung to his arm, asking him questions.

She wasn't kidding when she said we would be competing for his attention.

Finally, a bus pulled up and the team from Okinawa arrived and they were all really cute guys.

Am I ever going to meet a team that has a girl on it?

They were all dressed in purple tops with black stripes around the neck and arms and the shorts were black with purple stripes down the sides, the socks were white and the cleats were black.

We all got into our positions, the two captains going up to start the game off.

That would be me and some guy with spiked auburn hair with bangs covering his right eye, tanned skin and green eyes.

"So you're Daisuke Motomiya, the girl who faced off with that Ichijouji guy, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah and you are?" I asked.

"Toshiro Kira. Hope you don't mind, but…we're going to win this game with ease." He smirked.

"We'll see about that." I said.

The ref then blew the whistle and the game started.

It was long, hard and tricky to trip Toshiro up.

The other guys on his team lacked speed and had more strength behind them, but thankfully my boys were able to dodge them easily and kick the ball away from them.

Toshiro was able to catch up with me pretty well, but with all of my time running in the Digital World, I had actually gotten faster and was able to score a few goals with the help of my teammates.

**(A few hours later…)**

It was the last part of the game and we were all tied up at 9/9 and we had 5 minutes left on the clock.

All we needed was one more goal and we would win.

One of our players, Kaoru, had hurt his ankle when one of the Okinawa guys kicked it and he was out.

He was being subbed by Rin, the guy who has been taking over my position while I've been gone.

We never really got along because he hated the fact that the position he wanted was taken over by a girl.

All in all, he was a sexist creep.

"Try not to mess up." He said as he purposely bumped my shoulder.

I glared at him as he ran off to guard the goal with Riku and then I went up to my spot in front of Toshiro as Kai and Rei took their spots beside me.

"This is it. It's been a pleasure fighting with you." Toshiro said winking.

"It has been. We should do this again sometime." I said.

Then finally we were off again working for the goal that would end the game.

It was pretty much a blood bath seeing how everyone was blocking the other, tackling and kicking the ball out from the person they were guarding.

The goalies were also not backing down in blocking the ball from getting inside the goal.

I had the ball and the seconds were ticking away, Toshiro and one of his teammates on my tail as I made my way to their goal, looking for one of my teammates to pass the ball to.

Toshiro was right next to me now and as he went to kick the ball, he accidentally got kick my ankle making me wince in pain just as the whistle was blown, signaling the end of the game as the ball rolled away from us.

The game had ended in a tied up match.

"Sorry about that. You all right?" Toshiro asked as I limped over to my bench.

"I'm good." I said as Matt, Tai, Sora and Izzy ran over.

"If you're sure." He said giving a wave before he walked away.

"Daisuke, are you OK?" Sora asked as Demiveemon hopped off of Matt's shoulder and scurried over to take a look at my ankle.

"I've had worse injuries. Don't worry about it." I said and yelped as I put too much pressure on it.

I gasped when I was suddenly picked up bridal style and looked up to see two azure eyes looking down at me.

"You need to get that checked out. It's bleeding." He said walking over to the bench as Kai came over with a first aid kit.

My face was burning red from being carried by the guy I have a crush on.

Really, what is he thinking picking me up like this?

"Is she going to be OK?" Jun asked as she and Chizuru stood by watching as Izzy accepted the kit from Kai and opened it up while Matt set me down on the bench.

"She should be." Izzy said as he pulled out disinfectant and gauze.

Matt took off my cleat and sock to reveal the bruise forming on my ankle and the scrape I had gotten from Toshiro.

"Maybe we should have the nurse take a look at it." Tai said.

Matt nodded as he picked me up on my back after Izzy wrapped my ankle up and the older Digidestinds came into my school, Sora holding my bag with my stuff in it and Demiveemon.

Izzy's cell phone then went off, so he turned answered it.

"Hello? The others are what? All right, I got it. I'm already at the school. Yes, Daisuke's with us. Get over here fast." Izzy said.

"What was that about?" Tai asked.

"That was Joe. He said the others are trapped in an offshore oil platform." The red head said.

"What?" I asked.

"He needs me to get a hold of an old friend of ours to help out. Come on. He and Cody will be here soon." He said as he and Tai ran off to the computer room.

"I should go with them." I said.

"Forget it. You're not going anywhere with that ankle except the nurse." Matt said as he and Sora walked that way.

"Oh, hello. What happened?" the nurse asked as Matt placed me down on the bed in the room.

"Soccer accident." He said simply.

"Oh, dear. Let's see here." Miss Harada the old nurse said as she bent down and undid the wrap job Izzy did.

She started touching my ankle, making a few humming noises as she did so.

"Well, it doesn't look too bad. The swelling should go down soon, so you have nothing to worry about. Just let me re-wrap this and you'll be good to go." She said.

She did that and I stood up, Matt at my side to act as a crutch.

"Let's get to the computer lab." I said.

"No way." He protested.

"We're going and that's that. I knew something bad was going to happen and I'm going with Cody and Joe to help." I said.

Matt growled in annoyance as we walked off to the computer room where Tai and Izzy were, the red head working at the computer.

"Got it. Whamon's all ready to go when the guys get here and so is Gomamon." Izzy said.

"Great." Tai nodded and looked over as we walked in.

"How's Daisuke?" he asked.

"I'm right here you know." I said as Matt made me sit down in a chair and Demiveemon crawled up on my shoulder.

"She'll be fine. There's nothing to worry about." Sora said as I took out my D-terminal.

"What're ya doing, Dai?" Demiveemon asked.

"I'm messaging the others to see what's going on." I said as I started typing.

"_What on earth is going on there? Is anyone hurt? Message me back soon._

_P.S. Cody and Joe will be there as soon as they can._

_-Daisuke."_

Once finished, I sent the message to TK and that was when Cody and Joe came into the room.

"Daisuke, why are you here?" Cody asked when he saw me.

"The game's done. I thought I told you guys to call me when you got into trouble." I said going to stand up, but Matt's hand on my shoulder stopped me.

"I'm sorry, but we didn't want to bother you. We knew how important this game was." He said.

"Izzy, did you get a hold of them?" Joe asked coming up beside Izzy.

"Yeah, they're waiting for you." He said.

My D-terminal went off, so I looked at the message.

"TK just messaged me back." I announced making everyone look at me.

"_We found a digi egg. It has the Crest of Reliability on it. We think it may belong to Cody. By the way, how was your game?_

_-TK."_

"Let's get moving." Joe said.

"Daisuke, are you coming?" Cody asked as he pulled out his D-3.

"No, she's not. She hurt her ankle and isn't going with you." Matt said making me frown up at him.

"Dai, please stay here and rest up." Demiveemon begged with those adorable eyes of his

I groaned and crossed my arms as I sat back in the chair.

"Good luck out there." I said.

The two boys nodded as they were pulled into the gate.

I bit my thumb nail, hoping the others would be safe.

Something inside of me was nagging, saying that they were in trouble and started praying that they would be fine.

"They'll be fine." Tai said.

"I know, but I'm still worried." I said.

"We all are, but we have to believe in them." Sora said with that motherly smile of hers that made everyone feel safe and loved.

It was no wonder she was the original child of Love.

"They did it! MegaSeadramon is free and the others are safe." Izzy announced making us all cheer.

"See? Ya had nothing to worry about." Demiveemon smiled as he hopped up onto my head.

"Hey, it doesn't matter if things are fine or not. I'm gonna worry about them no matter what." I said.

"That's fine, as long as you don't over do it." Tai said.

The portal then started glowing and the others all came flying out of the computer and I yelped as Kari, Gatomon, Yolei, Poromon, TK and Patamon all fell on me, knocking me to the floor while Cody, Joe and Upamon landed on Izzy.

"We really need to put some pillows here." Yolei said.

"Says the girl who is never on the bottom of these dog piles." I groaned.

"Ow." Izzy groaned.

"So how'd the soccer game go?" TK asked with Patamon on his head.

To be continued…


	18. A Ghost of a Chance

"Ghost of a Chance"

**Well, here is the episode that might make you get the Ghostbusters theme song in your head. Hope you like. Please enjoy and review!**

We all yelled as we were thrown out of the portal and onto the hard linoleum floor after we returned from another day of work in the Digital World.

"Time for a snack!" Demiveemon sang as we all got up.

"Is that all you can think about? Food?" Kari giggled.

"Traveling to and from the Digital World can work up quite an appetite." Demiveemon said.

"He's right. We deserve to celebrate for our latest victory over the Digimon Emperor." TK said.

"Pizza! I heard there's a rad new place down by the beach. Let's get a large." Yolei cheered holding Poromon said.

"Sounds like a plan to me. Half Hawaiian and half peperoni." I said smiling.

"Cody? What's the matter?" Kari asked making us look at the thoughtful looking boy.

"It's nothing. I'm just not sure it's time to celebrate when we don't know what the Digimon Emperor is up to." Cody said.

"Maybe Cody's right. We should probably hold off on the pizza until we can figure out our next plan of attack." TK said.

"TK, you know how scary Yolei and the digimon can get when they don't get their food." I said making the girl and digimon giggle.

"Anyway, tomorrow we won't be able to use this classroom." Cody said.

"What? Why not?" Yolei asked.

"Oh, yeah. That's right. The detention room has been moved here and all the bad kids will be put in the computer lab." TK said.

"Hey, they're not all bad." I said in defense of my teammates since they were almost always in detention for fooling around.

"How can we go tomorrow if we can't access the computer lab?" the lavender haired girl asked.

"Wait a sec. we can't go into the Digital World tomorrow anyway. I almost forgot we have big plans." The child of Hope said confusing us.

"Plans?" I asked.

"With me." Kari said with a smile as she walked over to TK.

"Huh? You mean Tai actually let you date? I thought he wasn't going to let that happen until he left for college." I said making Kari and TK laugh.

"Of course not, silly." The child of Light said as she pulled out a date book and showed it to us.

Written in red was a very familiar date that I knew well, marking it as very important.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Tomorrow marks the anniversary of when the Digidestinds defeated Myotismon." The child of Hope said.

Oh, yeah, that's why it looked so familiar.

"Come on, guys, you wanna come with us?" TK asked with a smile.

"You mean on your date?" the child of Love and Sincerity asked with a smirk.

"I told you, it's not a date." Kari said with a blush.

Yolei and I shared a look at that before we just let it go.

**(Later…)**

"I can't believe it's already been four years since we went into the Digital World. It seems like yesterday." TK said.

We had all moved to the park and were sitting down waiting on the older kids to join us to hear more about their previous adventures.

"I can't imagine being in summer camp one second, then in another dimension the next. That sure beats canoeing and archery any day." Cody said.

"I was sick, so I missed camp that summer." Kari said.

"I almost forgot. You weren't there the first time we saw the weird stuff." TK said.

"Wait a sec! You guys looked pretty weird to us, you know." Patamon said.

"I guess." Yolei said.

"Hey!" someone called.

We all looked over to the road seeing the others had finally arrived and even Mimi was with them for the occasion.

"Look, it's Tai, Matt, Sora and the others." I said.

"Happy anniversary, guys." Tai said as we all stood up and walked over to them.

"Hey." I said.

"Mimi!" Yolei cried.

"Hi." Mimi said.

"Wow, what a reunion." Joe said.

"It has been a long time since we've all been together." Sora said.

"No kidding." Cody said.

"Yeah, think about it. There's enough of us here to start our own soccer league." TK said.

The entire group made our way over to a large tree that the original group had sat under all those years ago to make plans to find Kari when they didn't know she was the Eighth Child at the time.

"So you see, not all the corrupted digimon we encountered were in fact bad. They were just under the influence of the evil black gears." Tai said.

"But we found out we could destroy the black gears with our digivices and free them from their spell. We became good friends and eventually helped us defeat the four Dark Masters." Sora explained.

"They should make a movie out of this story." Yolei said.

"I hope these grass stains will come out of my clothes, or else my mom will ground me." Cody said.

"You guys have to tick together, no matter what. Remember that friendship is the key or you'll all be toast." Tai said.

The sun was setting now as we all stood near the lake watching a ferry pass by us.

"That's an incredible story. I must admit, I'm a little afraid we can't live up to the achievements of you original Digidestinds." Cody said.

"We wouldn't be here if we couldn't handle it." Yolei said.

"As long as we try our best and never give up, I'm sure we will." I said.

"That's the spirit, Daisuke." Tai said ruffling my hair, making me pout at him.

"Can the rest of you handle it?" Matt asked.

"I'm not sure." Yolei sighed.

"Just follow Daisuke." Joe said making me blush.

Yeah, sure.

Put all of the pressure on me, Mr. Reliable.

After that, we all separated to go home, but Matt caught my arm before I got too far with Tai, Kari, Gatomon and Sora.

"What's up?" I asked.

"TK and I are going shopping tomorrow. You wanna come with us?" he asked as TK and Patamon looked over his shoulder.

"Sure, sounds like fun." I said.

"See ya then." TK said.

"Hurry up!" Tai called I turned with Demiveemon in my arms to catch up to him and the girls.

**(The next day…)**

I was dressed in my new outfit instead of my usual one, brushing my bangs out of my face before I placed my goggles on around my neck.

"Should I come with ya?" Demiveemon asked me from his place on my bed.

Turning, I smiled at him.

"I don't see why not." I said as he jumped into my arms.

He giggled as he snuggled up to my chest and I smiled at him before I walked out of my apartment, seeing Tai and Kari with Gatomon in her arms were there.

"What're you guys doing here?" I asked.

"We're going over to Izzy's. We came to ask if you wanted to come." Tai said.

"Sorry, but I already have plans." I said.

"Really? Who with?" Kari asked.

"Matt invited me to go shopping with him and TK." I said and grew curious when Tai had this stressed out look.

This was one I had seen only once before when this boy was flirting with Kari and Tai was trying to hold himself back from pile driving the poor kid.

"H-How nice." He said through gritted teeth.

"Have fun. We'll see you later today at the station." Kari said as she and Gatomon waved me and Demiveemon off as we all walked out of the building.

Walking down to TK's street, I saw him with Patamon in his arms and Matt standing next to him.

Both smiled when they saw me.

"Ready to get moving?" Matt asked with a smile.

"Yeah. So what did you guys need anyway?" I asked.

"It's more of what Matt and Dad need. You see, our parents are divorced. I live with our mom while Matt lives with our dad. They both hardly have time to do any cooking or shopping, so they're kind of out of food that won't kill you." TK said as we walked.

"Yikes, really?" I asked.

"Ah, come on. The food I made last night wasn't so bad." Matt said.

"It had green fuzz on it!" the child of Hope yelled.

Demiveemon, Patamon and I laughed at that as the shopping day then went on.

I helped Matt pick out some meat, fruits and vegetables since I was used to grocery shopping with Jun when our parents were too busy to do it.

Funny thing though, TK took Demiveemon from me and sort of stayed far away as the two digimon drooled over a stack of chocolate bars while Matt and I did all of the work.

It wouldn't surprise me if my little dragon stole a chocolate bar and tried to eat it without paying for it first, so TK better keep a close eye on him.

"This should do it. Do you need anything else?" I asked as we placed the meats, vegies, fruits, eggs, milk and water on the checkout counter.

The old woman behind it smiled at us as she started scanning the items.

"Not that I can think of. This should be it for now. Thanks for the help, Dai." Matt said.

"Sure. It was kind of fun, but Tai wasn't too happy about me coming for some odd reason." I said.

"He treats you a lot like you're one of his sisters, did you ever notice that?" he asked as he pulled out his wallet.

"He does? Since when?" I asked with my nose scrunching up in thought.

He just laughed as TK came back with a bag of his own, Patamon and Demiveemon looking very pleased with themselves as the blonde looked like he just lost a battle.

"Can we please go home now?" he asked with pleading azure eyes as he nearly threw my dragon into my arms.

"Yeah, we're all done here." Matt said after he finished paying the woman and the three of us took bags to carry.

"Have a nice day, you three." She said.

"Bye!" we said as we walked out.

As we passed by a store window, the brothers seemed to get lost in their thoughts.

When I asked about it, they told me about their friends Pumpkinmon and Gotsumon who had been killed by Myotismon when they tried to help them.

After that, we got back to the Ishida apartment and we walked in to see the place was kind of a mess with dirty laundry spread around the room and the sink filled with dishes.

"Yucky! This place smells bad." Demiveemon said holding his nose making me laugh nervously at that.

"I told you so." TK said as he placed the bags down, one of them spilling out the chocolate bars that I suspected it held.

The two digimon dived right on them and started munching them.

"I guess I should have cleaned up a bit." Matt said.

"It's not that bad." I said gathering up some plates that were left on the table and stacked them up as I set the grocery bags down on the table.

"Hey, it's lunch time now. What're we having? I'm starving." TK said as we started unpacking.

"I don't know. I guess we could have some of this stuff here." Matt said.

"Ohh, let Dai cook!" Demiveemon said with chocolate covering his face.

Seriously, he is just about the cutest thing ever!

"You cook?" Matt asked sounding surprised.

"Demiveemon won't shut up about it half the time. Can you cook for us? I really wanna see if you're as good as he says." TK said taking off his hat.

"Sure, it's no problem for me. Just get the hamburger meat and buns for me and I'll get started." I said as I washed my hands in the sink.

The boys did as they were told and soon enough the apartment was filled with the scent of cooked meat and we were all sitting at the table eating the food that I cooked.

"This tastes great!" TK said as the digimon nearly devoured their burgers.

"It's just a burger. It's not rocket science. Anyone can make them if they tried." I said as I ate mine.

The door to the apartment opened and a middle aged man walked in looking very tired from work.

This must be Matt and TK's father.

"Hey, Dad. You're home really early." Matt commented.

"The producer forced me to come home. He said I looked like the living dead and was scaring some of the people at the station. What smells so good?" Mr. Ishida asked as he took off his shoes and jacket.

He then saw me and gave me a curious look as Patamon and Demiveemon hid in my and TK's shirts.

"Who's your friend here? I've never seen her before." He said.

"This is Daisuke Motomiya, she's one of my friends from school. Dai, this our dad Hiroaki Ishida. He works at the Fuji TV station." TK explained.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Ishida." I said with a smile.

"Oh, so this is Daisuke. You're quite the famous one. These two won't shut up about you half the time, you know." Hiroaki said as his sons both glared at him.

"Oh, really now?" I asked with a smile as I gave the blondes a look.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dad." Matt said brushing the comment off.

"Uh huh. So you cooked lunch, huh? And did the shopping. Good, we were running low on supplies." Hiroaki said as he fixed himself a plate.

"Actually, Dad, Dai was the one who cooked for us. She's really good at it." the child of Hope said after the man took his first bite.

His dark eyes widened as he looked at me and then his two sons.

A thoughtful look passed in those eyes before he swallowed his food.

"OK, one of you better marry her. This is one of those girls that if you let slip between your fingers you'll be kicking yourself later for it." he said.

My face was burning from that as TK laughed while Matt was in the same state as me.

"Oh, it won't be me. Matt has that all wrapped up if he'd just make a move." The younger blonde said as he and his father laughed.

"That's hardly funny!" the blushing child of Friendship yelled as he stood up, slamming his hands down on the table to show his anger.

"Who says I was joking?" TK countered.

After Matt nearly killed his brother, who used me as a shield for his own protection, the three of us went off to the station to meet up with the others.

Weird enough, I was getting this strange feeling from the place as the clouds rolled in overhead.

Just then, all of the workers ran out of the building and started screaming about there being a ghost inside and how it was haunted.

All of us were confused about this, but were snapped out of it as Gatomon rushed off inside, leaving us to chase after her.

"Gatomon!" Kari called as we followed the cat.

She ran into a room and stopped, looking at something in shock.

"Gatomon!" Kari cried as we ran in after them.

We all gasped at the sight of a shadow wearing a pointed hat was flying around in a circle on the ceiling above us.

"It's the ghost!" TK gasped.

"Who ya gonna call?" Kari asked.

"Hey, what's going on?" I asked looking around the room as things began to levitate.

The chairs were moving and papers were flying everywhere by some invisible source.

"_Gatomon…"_ the ghost called out in a raspy voice.

"What does it want?" Yolei asked fearfully.

"You're asking me?" Tai asked.

"It wants me." Gatomon said calmly as she stepped forward.

"Who are you?" she called.

"Dai, I think she's flipped her lid." Demiveemon said as he, Poromon and Upamon jumped out of our arms and stood in front of us protectively.

"Let's do something." Upamon said.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Yolei asked.

"We've gotta save Gatomon!" Poromon said.

"Demiveemon digivolve too…VEEMON!"

"Upamon digivolve too…ARMADILLOMON!"

"Poromon digivolve too…HAWKMON!"

The three stood their ground, ready to fight to protect us and save their friend.

"Go get them!" Yolei said.

"I assume that's a servant of the Digimon Emperor sent here to frighten us." Hawkmon said.

"I don't think so." I said thoughtfully making everyone look at me.

"What do you mean, Daisuke?" Izzy asked.

"Well, Ken thinks that the Digital World isn't real, right? That it's just some game. So why would he send a digimon out here to scare us if he thinks that?" I asked.

"She has a point." Cody said nodding.

"But if Ken didn't send that ghost, then who did?" Yolei asked as we all looked up at the shadow as it started to circle faster.

"Please, let me handle this." Gatomon said holding her arms out.

"_Gatomon!"_ the voice rang out once more.

"Don't move guys." The cat said.

The shadow slithered like a snake down the ceiling to the wall and then on the floor.

It stopped a few feet away from the cat, who looked shocked as she figured something out as she started at it, sensing something.

"Wizardmon!" she gasped out.

The original Digidestinds all gasped at that, stunned by the news that their old friend was here.

The shadow rose up from the floor, turning into a transparent form of a gray skinned male with green eyes and dressed in a wizard outfit.

"Gatomon, I'm glad you've come." Wizardmon said.

"Wizardmon, it's good to see you." Gatomon said smiling sadly at him.

"I have a very urgent message to deliver to you." He said.

"What is it, dear friend?" she asked.

"Your great enemy is a friend. You cannot beat him as you are now." Wizardmon said.

"Does he mean the Digimon Emperor?" TK gasped.

"Your enemy is not only the Digimon Emperor, but a much greater darkness. This darkness, it cannot be defeated with strength alone. You must return the one wrapped in darkness to rescue his true self." Wizardmon said.

"What? True self?" Gatomon asked being as confused as the rest of us.

"Kindness will release the Golden Radiance." The spell caster digimon said as his eyes flitted over to me for a brief second before they were focused on Gatomon again.

What was that about?

"Kindness? I hope he doesn't mean we have to be nice to Ken." The child of love and Sincerity said.

Oh, Yolei, honestly.

The guy broke your heart, get over it.

It's not like you really knew the true him well enough to fall in love with him.

"Kindness alone will not prevail, Gatomon. The Golden Radiance is also necessary." Wizardmon said.

"I see, but-"the Celestial was cut off.

"You don't have much time! You must hurry. Goodbye, my friend." Wizardmon said looking at his friend fondly.

"Wait!" Veemon called.

"I can't. Gatomon, be careful." The spell caster said.

"Wait, Wizardmon!" the cat cried.

They both stared at each other sadly, millions of emotions being shared as they both reached out their hands to touch, but Gatomon's paw went through his transparent form.

"I'm sorry." He said pulling away.

Gatomon gasped as tears fell from her eyes and she chased after Wizardmon as he started moving back, disappearing from our sights for good.

We all watched as Gatomon cried, Kari walking over to hug her in comfort.

Wizardmon had risked his life to save theirs and they finally got to see him again after all of this time, the last time since he wouldn't be getting reborn.

We mourned him that day, the duo of Light leaving a bouquet of beautiful red roses for him as we all left, sending our prayers to him.

Now we're stuck with trying to figure out this prophecy thing we've got.

I wonder what it means.

This darkness…could it be what made Ken turn into the monster he is today and if we defeat it will Ken return to normal?

To be continued…


	19. Run, Yolei, Run

"Run Yolei, Run!"

**Here is the next chapter. Internet was down at my house for a few days sadly, so I had some time to work on this and many other things. Hope you enjoy!**

After we had gotten the prophecy from Wizardmon, my team along with Izzy, Tai and Matt all split up into groups and started searching the Digital World for Ken's base and to see what he had been working on so far.

Everywhere we went seemed to be filled with control spires and we were attacked by digimon with dark rings on them.

Finally we all retreated to the portal that would lead to Izzy's room and the only two left we were waiting on was Izzy and Cody.

The computer glowed and the two came out along with Upamon.

"That's everyone." Tai said.

"Is my mom here?" Izzy asked.

"No, we were lucky. We all made it back before she got home." Tai said.

"That was close." Izzy said as he typed away on the computer.

"So what did you guys find in your area?" Tai asked.

"The whole place was covered with a whole bunch of control spires." Cody said.

"I knew it." Yolei said.

"It's like there's a control spire convention in town." Demiveemon said.

"Tell me about it. There were hundreds of them." TK said.

"We found something else, too. The Digimon Emperor's base." Cody said.

"The base?" Kari asked as the boy set Upamon on the bed with the rest of the digimon.

"Yeah." He said.

"_I'll keep my eye out on things here and report back if there's any trouble."_ Tentomon said on the computer.

"Right." Izzy said as he started typing away.

"All right, everybody take a look at this." He said as he turned the computer to all of us.

"Huh?" we asked.

"First, look at the area Daisuke and her group explored. Next is the area that TK's group was in. finally, here's where my group was. If we connect them together, it's a path." The red head said.

"He's taking over all of the areas. Talk about messed up." Poromon said.

"There'll be nothing left of our world!" Patamon said.

"Not to mention our friends." Demiveemon said.

"That's it, now I'm really starting to get upset." Upamon said.

"If we could only destroy that base." Gatomon said pacing on the bed.

"Wait a minute, that's it! If we destroy the Emperor's headquarters, then the control spires will be useless." Kari said.

"That makes a lot of sense." TK said.

"But how are we gonna do this? We need a plan of action or else this'll end badly." I said.

"She's right, but it's gonna take a lot of thinking." Yolei said.

"I agree and I also think it's gonna take more than one day to accomplish." TK said.

"Huh? I suppose if we all had to be back at a certain time we wouldn't be able to concentrate on destroying the base." Yolei said.

"Right and we all have to agree on one thing; we don't return until the base is destroyed." Kari said standing up.

"Huh? You mean…" the child of Love and Sincerity trailed off in shock.

"I don't know. If I'm not there for my mom's tuna casserole, she'll know something's wrong. I haven't missed one in two years." Cody said.

"With all these control spires in the Digital World, there's no way our digimon will ever be able to digivolve." Izzy said.

"That means that we older kids would be useless if we go to the Digital World with you guys." Matt said.

"That's true, Matt, but there are other ways we can help out without actually going with them, like camping. While you guys go to the Digital World, the rest of us will go on a camping trip." Tai said.

"Huh?" Kari asked.

"How does that help us if we're fighting the Digimon Emperor and you're roasting the marshmallows?" TK asked.

"It's simple. We'll tell all our parents that we're going camping, but if they call the camp grounds and no one's there we'll get in trouble. So the older kids will go camping for real and cover you." The original Leader said.

"Great idea, Tai. Plus we get to go camping." Matt said.

"Tough job, but someone's gotta do it." Tai joked.

There was knocking at the door making us all jump, but I stayed sitting where I was on the floor while everyone started running around, getting into different positions.

"Come in." Izzy said as he held all of the digimon, except for Demiveemon who was in my arms.

Matt and Tai were holding a globe while TK and Kari were in a dancing move with the child of Light being dipped and finally Cody and Yolei were in an arm wrestling match on the floor.

Really, who do they have to make a big deal out of it when someone comes into the room?

"Oh, you're home. Hello." Mrs. Izumi said as she came into the room smiling.

"Hi there, Mom." Izzy laughed nervously.

"Hello Mrs. Izumi!" The rest of us greeted.

"Hi, kids. What are you doing inside on such a nice day?" she asked as we all looked over to Izzy.

"Uh, we were discussing going on a camping trip for our next vacation." He said.

"Oh, that sounds like fun, but you're going to need a chaperon. Who's the adult that's going with you?" Mrs. Izumi asked.

"Uh…" Izzy saied unsure of what to say before Matt stepped in front of him with a nervous smile holding the globe.

"Oh, don't worry, my dad will go with us, he loves traveling the world." He said as Tai leaned over to whisper to him.

"Are you sure?" Tai whispered to him.

"No, but it sounded good." Matt whispered back.

"All right then, I hope you all enjoy your trip." Mrs. Izumi said and then left the room making everyone fall out of their positions and land on the floor in a slump.

That went well.

That night when I was at home I was busy packing a bag with the things I would need for camping out in the Digital World and hoped it would be enough.

As I was doing this, Jun walked into my room.

Man, doesn't she ever knock?

"What are ya doin', Dai?" she asked.

"My friends and I are going on a camping trip." I said.

"Oh. Is Matt going too?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah." I said.

"Well, if you're going and everyone else is going and Matt's going…can I go too?" she asked.

Seriously, I do not have time to deal with this.

"Sure you can go. Go away!" I said getting up and push her out of my room, seeing my Mom at the couch watching a news report.

"_We still have no clue as to the whereabouts of boy genius Ken Ichijouji, who mysteriously disappeared some time ago."_ The man said as the scene went to Ken's parents, his mother sobbing.

"_If anyone's seen my son, please contact the police right away."_ The father said.

"That kid's still lost?" Jun asked.

"_I hope he's not alone somewhere cold and hungry. Oh, he's helpless without me."_ The mother cried into her handkerchief.

Man, if they only knew the truth.

Really, how can Ken make his parents worry about him like this?

How selfish can one guy get?

Sighing, I turned and walked back into my room to continue packing.

**(The next day…)**

OK, Yolei was freaking me out with how she was acting.

"Digimon Emperor, prepare to go down! We're gonna teach that evil genius a lesson he'll never forget!" she said pacing around the room.

"She's excited to go." Patamon said.

"I know. She's been acting like this all night." Poromon said as the lavender haired girl started doing some boxing moves, getting herself pumped up.

"Hey, Yolei, save some for the Digimon Emperor." Izzy joked.

The rest of us all gathered up our stuff as we walked over to the computer with our bags, ready to go.

"Left, right. Left, right. And halt!" Yolei said leading us as we stopped in front of the computer as Matt came into the room.

"Sir, yes sir." TK said.

"You got a lot to learn about women, TK." Matt said.

"Oh, and you're the expert?" I asked making TK giggle.

"Be safe." Tai said.

"Right." Kari said.

All right, time to go. Let the battle begin! DIGI PORT OPEN! Yee haw!" Yolei yelled as we all held up our D-3s and were pulled into the portal.

Cody led us to this cliff where he and Izzy had seen the base before, all of us climbing.

"The Digimon Emperor's base is up here, follow me." He said while Yolei climbed up at a faster pace with Hawkmon chasing after her.

"Yolei, this isn't a track meet." He said.

"I hate to be a fly in your soup, but the Emperor's base is gone!" Tentomon said as he swooped down over to us.

"Huh? It can't be." TK said.

"Let's have a look." Kari said as we continued our climbing.

"His base was right here." Cody said when we got to the top, but there was no base, only a deserted area filled with control spires.

"Maybe he moved it." I said spotting a huge crater far off from the area.

That must've been where the base was.

"Since he was leaving he could have done the polite thing and take those control spires with him." Armadillomon said.

"Has anyone seen Yolei?" Gatomon asked.

"Look down there." Kari said pointing and we saw that the duo of Love and Sincerity were sliding down the side of the mountain.

"Great, she really had lost her mind." I groaned.

We all followed after her and went to scope the place out.

"How can a whole building simply disappear into thin air?" TK asked as we observed the crater.

"Maybe ken's friends with really good magician." Kari said.

"What do we do?" Patamon asked.

"We keep on looking. We promised not to leave until the base is destroyed." TK said.

"We'll be fine. All we have to do is follow the leads we gather and we'll find the base soon enough." I said smiling hoping it would raise everyone's hope.

I' the leader and I need to set an example by not giving up, even if things seem hopeless.

"Up here!" Yolei called making us turn to see her climbing up a control spire.

Did Tai ever have someone who was this crazy on his team in the past?

"Yolei seems to be losing it." Hawkmon said worried.

Really?

Whatever made you think that?

"I know what happened. The entire building just flew right up into the sky!" she said.

"Ridiculous. If that happened, someone would have seen it." Hawkmon said as he circled around his partner.

"Oh, that's right. It was you!" Yolei said turning on the startled Tentomon once she got down.

"Me?" he asked.

"You were guarding this area the entire time we were gone. Now tell us what you saw or else!" she yelled at him.

"Stop yelling at Tentomon, Yolei! He tried." Hawkmon said.

"Well, he should have tried harder!" Yolei yelled.

Finally, I had enough and got up from my place and walked over to her.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, turned her around and slapped her right across the face.

She stumbled back in shock while everyone stared in worry.

Yolei held a hand to her bright red chook while I glared at her, not amused with her bratty attitude.

"Stop it right now! You're been acting like a psychotic freak ever since we first met up at Izzy's. Turning on our friends isn't helping at all. If you don't calm down you can turn around and march right back to the portal and go home, because this new attitude you've picked up will only get yourself hurt if we're faced with one of Ken's servants!" I said coldly.

We both glared at each other before she turned away in a huff and walked off to the side.

"I'm terribly sorry, Tentomon. Yolei doesn't mean any of it. She's been under a lot of strain lately." Hawkmon said after everyone got over the shock.

"Well, does she have to yell at me? Can't she take a yoga class or something? What's she doing now?" Tentomon asked.

"I'm not going to ask her as long as she has that hammer in her hand." Hawkmon said as the girl used a hammer on something in the ground.

"Troops, I'm off to scout the Digimon Emperor's empire. I'll report back soon with good news." She said standing up with a rope in her hand.

"She didn't listen to you." Veemon said making me groan.

"Now you know why we never became friends even if our sisters are." I said.

"Yolei, wait for me!" Hawkmon said flapping after her.

The rest of us sighed tiredly as they went down, but then the sound of arguing broke out before the ground shook and growling was heard.

Yolei then screamed as we all went over to see a large spider digimon called Dokugumon shoot out her Poison Thread at Yolei, but she was knocked out of the way by Hawkmon, who took on the attack himself.

"HAWKMON!" she yelled.

"Hawkmon, Yolei! Get out of there!" TK yelled.

"Dai!" Veemon said.

"Right." I nodded to him.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Veemon armour digivolve too…Flamedramon: the Fire of Courage!"

Dokugumon started climbing up after Yolei and Hawkmon while Flamedramon went to keep the spider busy while the rest of us helped our friends up by pulling up the rope.

"Hawkmon, speak to me." She said.

"Pull, everyone. Pull." Tentomon said.

"Hawkmon, hang on." Yolei cried.

Flamedramon used his Fire Rocket on Dokugumon, sending her back down into the crater.

"We got you, Yolei." Kari said as we pulled the girl and her hawk into our arms as Flamedramon was covered in flame, attacking the spider again to keep her away from us.

"Hawkmon, speak to me!" Yolei cried.

The entire crater was filled with flames that shot up into the sky while Yolei still cried out her partner's name, trying to wake him back up.

"You're busted." My dragon said as the dark spiral was broken and Dokugumon walked away.

Hawkmon was bandaged up and was left to rest on a makeshift bed made from our bags when Veemon walked back over to us.

"How's Hawkmon doing?" he asked as I turned to him.

"I think he'll be all right. We wrapped him up. Now we just have to keep him safe until he heals. He sure was brave risking himself like that." I said.

"Hawkmon!" Yolei cried further off from us.

Can't say I didn't warn her that something bad would happen, but it's not my fault she was too stubborn to listen to me.

Still, I hate being right.

"Yolei?" Kari called as she stood up watching the sobbing girl.

She looked away sadly, before she gasped and looked back over to the lavender haired girl as she stood up.

"I'll stay here and take care of Hawkmon, OK? You guys go on and find the Emperor's headquarters." She said turning to us as she still cried a bit.

I stood up next to Kari.

"But-"

"I don't wanna cause trouble for anyone else. Please, just go." She begged as more tears fell.

"All right then, we'll see ya later." TK said standing up with a smile making her stop and look at him.

"He's right. You need to be with Hawkmon right now. Let's go." I said.

"Right." Cody said standing up.

"I'll stay here." Kari said.

"You will?" Yolei asked.

"More of the Digimon Emperor's slaves might attack, so we better have Gatomon around as a body guard." The child of Light said.

"Good point." Gatomon said.

"All right, if anything happens we can always e-mail each other. Then you'll always know where we are through the D-3s. If we haven't found the base by nightfall, we'll come back here, OK?" TK asked as Yolei nodded.

"OK." Kari said.

"See ya later." Cody said.

"Be careful." I said.

"Yeah, you too." She called.

"Oh, don't worry about us. We've got Dai. What could possibly go wrong?" Veemon asked.

"Is that a joke?" I asked making the duos of Hope and Light laugh as the boys and I walked off from the girls and Hawkmon.

As our search went on, the sun beginning to start and the sky turned orange.

"There's a lot of control spires around here." Cody said.

"I know. I'm getting tired of all this construction on my beautiful forest." Tentomon said.

"Don't worry, when we're through here this place will be as good as new." TK said.

"Hey, Cody. What's wrong?" Armadillomon asked as the boy fell behind.

"I'm not sure. I saw something. I don't know what it was, but it came from over there. Some kind of shadow." The child of Knowledge and Reliability said making TK and I stop to look back at him.

"Let's get moving. We don't want to be separated when the sun goes down." I said.

"Oh, sorry." He said running up to us.

As we continued walking, I have to say that Yolei's theory on the base flying may be right.

After a while we returned to the camp and saw what looked like the base was floating in the air far off from us, meaning that it really does fly.

Great, leave it to Ken to make things harder.

To be continued…


	20. The Golden Radiance

"An Old Enemy Returns and Darkness Before the Dawn"

**Here is the next chapter. I hope you all enjoy. Please enjoy and review!**

There are some things I can handle, but there are some things that I can't.

One of them is being left at camp with Yolei, Kari and our digimon without being told!

TK took off with Cody, Patamon, Tentomon and Armadillomon.

"The e-mail says they figured out which way the Digimon Emperor is heading." Kari said as she checked her D-terminal with Yolei and their digimon sitting around them eating.

"What does it mean?" Yolei asked.

Veemon and I were sitting away from them eating the food that we brought.

Really, TK's the one that preached on friendship and me trusting them, yet he actually had the gull to ditch me without taking my feelings into consideration.

After a while, I noticed that the girls were being far too quiet, so when I turned around to look at them, I noticed that they were gone too!

Raidramon and I quickly started searching the area, looking for our friends, but they were gone too.

"Why is everyone leaving?!" I asked annoyed beyond belief.

What is up with that?

We got to the beaching area where the ocean was, looking up in the sky for any sight of Halsemon and Nefertimon, but they weren't there.

They must be long gone by now.

As I got down from Raidramon's back, I felt that same feeling from a few weeks ago.

It was the pull of…the Dark Ocean.

I stumbled back while Raidramon was there to steady me.

"Dai, what's wrong?" he asked worried.

My eyes were screwed up tightly as the sick feeling crept over me as images of evil creatures flashed through my mind, some I recognized and others I don't.

They were demonic in appearance and made my skin crawl.

"Dai, please. Calm down. Tell me what's wrong so I can help you." Raidramon begged as I clung to his neck.

"The darkness…I can feel it." I whimpered.

"It's…coming from the ocean." I said opening my eyes to look at to the clear blue water that made me feel sick to my stomach.

"_Help me…"_ a soft voice in my mind called.

My eyes darted over the area.

"Who said that?" I asked.

"Who said what? Dai, are you feeling OK?" Raidramon asked.

I stood up, looking around for the owner of the voice.

"_Please, help find me. The darkness is killing me. Please come help me."_ The voice came again.

It was coming out from the ocean.

Just who is it?

My dragon returned to normal as I started running off to look around the place.

"What's wrong?" Veemon asked.

"Someone is calling me." I said.

"Is it the Dark Ocean again?" he asked.

"No, it's not the Divermon. It's someone or something else. I'm not sure what, but all I know is they need help." I said.

"What if they're tricking you again? It happened once before and I'm not letting it happen again." He said as we stopped by a part of the island that had a palm tree.

The feeling of the darkness was coming back again full force, only it was worse making me stumble back into a palm tree.

The tree behind me then fell forward, making me fall onto my back.

"What happened now?" Veemon asked.

The part of the land we were on broke off from the rest and started sailing out into the ocean as the sickness increased.

"Well, at least this works better than a boat." I groaned as I forced myself to ignore the sickness from the darkness.

"Hey, Dai? Hoe come we're on land and I'm getting seasick?" my dragon asked.

"Who knows, V?" I said with a weak smile.

"_Please come find me."_ The voice begged again.

Just what is the voice?

Can I really trust it?

It feels so familiar to me though and I feel like I have to go find it.

"Gee, Dai, the rest of the guys must be far ahead of us." Veemon said.

"Yeah. I hope this thing can go faster. I have a bad feeling that the guys are gonna need our help." I said.

Finally, we met up with the others as the sun began to set to see that they were on one of those islands like us with a group of digimon.

Thankfully, the feeling of the darkness also left, so we were safe.

"Daisuke!" Kari called as the others all jumped onto my island as I glared at them.

When I didn't answer them and regarded them with a cold glare, they all blanched as they backed up, hiding behind TK in fear.

"Um, guess what? I got into a fight with Ken and pummeled him. Bad news is he created a new evil digimon from different parts of digimon. Did we mention we love you?" he asked nervously as my look never faltered.

"Did he use the power of darkness?" Veemon asked.

"How did you know?" Tentomon asked.

"Maybe because I could feel it all the way across the ocean." I said as my voice rose a bit.

"Look, I'm happy you guys are safe, but I wish you would tell me what you're doing next time. It makes me feel like you don't respect me when you just take off without discussing your plans with me first." I said.

"You're right. We're sorry." Kari said.

I took in a deep breath and smiled at them all, making them relax.

"Well, let's try and figure out what to do about this new monster." I said.

Hours later night fell and we watched from up in the canyons as Kimeramon went on a rampage, destroying the homes of innocent digimon.

"It's terrible. All those digimon, they don't have a home anymore." Kari said.

"Wait till I get my paws on Ken." Raidramon growled.

"He's destroyin' everthin' in his path!" Digmon said.

"And he shows no signs of letting up." Halsemon said.

"It's like he wants to burn every square inch of the Digital World." Cody said with a frown.

"Bite your tongue." Yolei said to him.

"That can't taste very good." Tentomon said.

"We've gotta stop that thing!" TK said.

"TK's right. We have to destroy it no matter what it costs us." Kari said.

"I think everyone agrees but even when we all combine, we still don't have the power to defeat him." Pegasusmon said.

"So now what?" Kari asked.

"We have two options, quite or give up because nothing will stop him until he runs out of gas." Tentomon said.

"Huh? Runs out of gas? Tentomon, you just gave me an idea." Cody said.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!" the bug digimon said.

We all waited as Cody sent a message to Izzy with his plan, then watched as Agumon and Gabumon came, Tentomon joining them as they went down to the pipe.

Kimeramon passed over it as the base followed behind and that was when the three digimon turned the valve making it shoot up oil while Agumon and Gabumon breathed their flames into the oil, making larger flames as the base was slowed down.

"Look, Izzy's plan worked." Kari said as we all mounted our digimon.

"While he's busy with technical difficulties, let's sneak in." I said.

"Hey guys, down there! Do you see that small door? I bet that's the entrance." Cody said.

"Let's go, Raidramon!" I said as he jumped down to the cave, the others following.

Our group walked down into the base until we saw a light at the end of the dark tunnel and we entered a room filled with neon green lights in the walls.

"Hey, it looks like something out of a science fiction movie!" TK said.

We all got off our digimon as we went over to an opening to see a black tower, me feeling something familiar hidden behind it.

"Boy, I bet he gets great reception with that TV antenna. And he must get all the underground stations with that one." Yolei said.

"Down there. That's where the engine room is." TK said.

"What's that sound?" I asked when this groaning noise was heard.

A door opened up and a swarm of Bakemon appeared.

"At least they're small." Yolei said with a small smile trying to be positive.

"Something tells me they're not here to welcome us." Cody said.

Our digimon started off fighting, breaking the dark rings as we all made a break for it as we got on our partners' back to escape and find another way to get to the control room.

When we made it into a store room filled with cargo, the ceiling shook and in burst Kimeramon.

"I can't believe it, we were almost in the engine room." The child of Hope said as more Bakemon came in.

"Dai, you and the others go and hide." Raidramon said shocking us.

"Chimeramon is really strong, it's going to take all of us to fight him and it might get ugly." The dragon said.

"I agree. You need to stay clear, TK." The winged horse said.

"You guys be careful." The blonde said.

"Don't do anything stupid." I said.

"Don't worry, Kari." Nefertimon said.

"I'll try." The child of Light said.

"Save us some snacks for when this is all over." Digmon said.

"Let's go guys!" the child of Love and Sincerity said as we all got off and started heading for a safe place to hide and watch the battle.

The five amours took out all of the Bakemon, even those that were coming after us, but then Kimeramon used his attack, not even hitting them but the power of it still sent them flying.

He even destroyed some of his allies.

"He's too powerful." I said.

"And they weren't even hit!" Kari said.

"He doesn't even care who he hits. He's too out of control!" TK said.

The armour digimon all blasted Chimeramon with their attacks, but it did no effect at all.

"It had no effect!" Kari said.

"They used their best attacks, and he doesn't have a single scratch on him." Yolei said.

"Now what? What else can we do?" the child of Knowledge and Reliability asked.

"There's just nothing we can do now, Cody, except watch." TK said with a glare.

Kimeramon just kept blasting all the digimon around the room, each of us wincing every time one of our partners were rammed into a wall.

"They can't take much more. He'll destroy them!" Kari said.

All the armour digimon then reverted back to their in-training forms making us all worry even more.

All of a sudden, Kimeramon stopped moving.

We were all confused about this, but took this as our chance to gather up our partners in our arms.

"Let's get out of here." TK said with a serious look on his face.

"You mean leave?" I asked surprised.

"Our plan didn't work because our digimon weren't strong enough. Sometimes you just have to fall back and come up with a new plan and try again." The blonde said.

"Besides, they don't have enough strength to keep going." Kari said.

"I'm with TK." Cody said.

"Well I'm not!" I yelled shocking everyone.

"Look guys, we can't just give up and leave yet. We might not ever get a chance like this again and how do we know it won't start attacking again?" I asked looking over at Kimeramon.

"He's just standing there like a statue. Let's finish what we came here to do." I said.

"It's impossible." Kari said in defeat making me extremely annoyed at how easily they were all giving up hope.

"Kari's right." Cody said.

"Daisuke, look around, most of our digimon have returned to their in-training forms." Yolei said.

"We didn't mean too." Demiveemon said as he looked up at his partner.

"After everything we've been through…we can't give up. I won't ever forget those horrible things I've seen happen. This is our chance to finally end all of this pain and suffering and you guys just want to quit? That isn't what being a Digidestind is about! As long as we stand together and never give up, we can make it. Come on, I know we can. If you guys change your minds, come after me." I said running over to the opening that showed the tower.

Grabbing hold of the chain that was attached to the ceiling, I swung down with Demiveemon hanging onto me and landed on one of the pathways to the tower.

"_Come find me…"_ the voice sounded.

There was that feeling again.

"Kimeramon, don't let them get away!" a familiar voice called out making me turn to see Ken was up in one of the entrances.

The Frankeinstein digimon then glanced back at Ken before he flew up to the hole he created.

"Kimeramon, where are you going? Kimeramon!" Ken yelled after it.

There was then a dark voice laughing evilly that made Ken freeze in fear and me look around along with my friends in shock.

"Let's end this nightmare." I said as I started walking, but then Wormmon swung down on his silk thread and landed in front of me.

"What are ya doin' here?" Demiveemon asked.

"This way." Wormmon said turning his back on us, but had his head looking over in our direction.

"The engine room is over here. Follow me." The green and purple digimon said.

"Do I look stupid to you? Never mind, don't answer that. Is this some sort of trap?" Demiveemon asked.

"No. Listen, you have to believe me. This isn't a trap. I'm trying to save my master. He created this awful digimon, Kimeramon and now he can't control it and I'm afraid thing have gone too far and I'm losing him. I hope that if you destroy this place I'll be able to get him back. I'm willing to help you if you'll help me. What do you say? Is it a deal?" Wormmon asked with hope and fear for his partner shining in his dark blue eyes.

He really does care for him.

Maybe…there's a part of Ken that's worth redemption if Wormmon cares this much for him.

"OK."I said stunning him.

"Really, you will? Thanks, come on!" he said leading us over to the engine room.

He opened up the doors and Demiveemon and I both gasped at what was inside, the energy in the room feeling alive and it had the familiar presence I had felt.

"Do you feel that? It's like the room is filled with some sort of energy!" Demiveemon said.

"What do you think it is?" I asked about the black object in the middle of the room.

"_You found me! Please, come take me quickly."_ The voice came again from the object.

"I don't know, but it's coming from that black thing." Demiveemon said as we all walked towards it.

"Ken found that, Somehow the power from it is making this base move." Wormmon said.

"OK, so all we have to do is take it away and the base will stop moving." I said.

The black object then began floating in mid-air as the lights all around the base shut off, putting us all in pure darkness.

Soon enough, the object began glowing with a gold light that was filled with the exact same energy as the firefly like lights that swarmed around my hands when I was in the Dark ocean and around Flamedramon.

A mark appeared on the object too, soon enough Demiveemon digivolved into Veemon.

The black peeled away, revealing a pure gold object that had a different mark on it than the one we had seen before.

"Veemon, look at that! I've never seen anything like it." I gasped smiling in awe.

"Me neither. It's a golden digi egg." Veemon said.

"_This is the power of the Golden Radiance. It's been inside of you all along, Daisuke. Now use it to bring back Kindness."_ The voice said as the golden digi egg floated into my hands.

"It's mine?" I asked stunned at the pleasant warm feeling.

"Then let's put it to some good use." Veemon said with a smile.

"Right." I said nodding at him.

Taking in a deep breath, I held my arms out into the air feeling tingles of power from the egg.

"GOLDE ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called

Golden light grew into a blinding sight as Veemon was lifted off of the ground, the power of the Golden Radiance of Miracles transforming him into a new, more powerful digimon.

"Veemon golden armour digivolve too…"

The light in the area destroyed the energy room as the new digimon burst through it, his golden armour glinting gallantly from the shone, making everyone stare on in awe at him.

"MAGNAMON!"

Let the real games begin.

To be continued…


	21. The Crests of Kindness and Miracles

"The Crests of Kindness and Miracles"

**Here is the next chapter, I hope you all like it. This is dedicated to Kyogami since I took their suggestion for this chapter. Please enjoy and review!**

Magnamon cast golden light all over the room around us, everyone staring in amazement at him.

"This is just about the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my whole life." I gasped.

"I am Magnamon, a golden armour digimon that attacks with my Magna Blaster and I look so good doing it too." He said.

Looking up at my friends I saw that the lights flowing over them made Upamon and Poromon digivolve into Armadillomon and Hawkmon.

"Hey, digi fools. You honestly think your new digimon can beat me? He couldn't even be my flashlight." Ken said making me look up to him.

"Don't you ever know when to shut up?" I asked with my hands on my hips.

"You didn't let me finish. He would make a good night light." Ken said.

The base shook as an explosion was made down below us, Magnamon's intense light show fading down so we could all see properly.

Kimeramon blasted into the base, snarling and looking ready to do some damage.

"Kimeramon!" Ken called.

The beast was heading straight up to where I was at a fast past, Wormmon bailing as fast as he could while Magnamon came over and gathered me up into his arms and we rolled over to safety.

"Dai, I'll take care of this." Magnamon said as he set me down and he turned to face Kimeramon.

"Good luck, Magnamon. And whatever happens…just come back to me." I said turning and going to get the others.

"I promise." He said before he took to the air and got into a fight with Kimeramon.

I ran out of the room and found the stairs, running up them until I spotted my friends as the base shook from the battle going on.

"Guys, wait!" I called making TK stop and turn to me.

"Run, Dai!" he called.

The base shook again and Kimeramon's arm was shoved through the wall right beside me, so I had to make a jump for it to avoid getting hit before he went after my dragon.

"We don't have that much time. We have to ditch this place before it takes a nose dive." Gatomon said.

"Sure would be nice to get the Digimon Emperor while we're here." Armadillomon said.

"Right, let's go get him!" I said.

There are a few things I want to say to him.

We all started running to catch up with Ken, where ever he was.

When we found him, he was yelling at Wormmon and kicked him up off of his leg before he whipped him.

"KEN!" I yelled making him turn to us.

"Well, if it isn't the Digidestinds. I see that you finally come to your senses and are ready to surrender to me and Kimeramon." He smirked.

"I think you've taken too many soccer balls to the head if you believe that." I said.

"And another thing; who said it was OK for you to go out and create a digimon anyway?" Yolei asked.

"Yeah, do you think you're Doctor Frankenstein or something creating a creature just for your own cruel pleasure? Kimeramon is not the monster, Ken. You are!" Cody said.

"Look at them! Are they trying to hurt you? They're not your toys for some kind of a sick game, they're alive. They're not just data in a computer. They're living creatures like you and I." TK said making Ken's eyes widen in shock.

"You're a Digidestind, too. Just like us, you have a responsibility to both worlds. Like Wormmon, he's your friend and not someone you should kick around." Kari said making him look at his partner as he looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Master?" Wormmon asked as Ken turned his back on us, head bent.

"There's only one digimon that's suitable enough for me…AND THAT'S KIMERAMON!" he yelled.

Speaking of the beast, he just destroyed the tower making it crash and explode, the flames reaching up near us and almost hit us as we covered ourselves for protection.

The base also felt like it was dropping out of the air, making us struggle to regain our balance.

"Don't feel too proud that you destroyed my home base because you're going down with it!" Ken said as he ran off, Wormmon following.

"Wait! Ken, we wanna help you! Ken, listen to me!" I called, but he didn't answer.

"Pardon me, but it is getting a little hot down here." Hawkmon said as the base shook yet again.

"Right, but do you guys have enough energy to digivolve?" Yolei asked.

"Yes, now let's leave before I'm a fried chicken." Hawkmon said.

"The heat is on, guys. Ready?" Gatomon asked as Patamon nodded.

"Yeah." Armadillomon said.

"OK, let's do it." Kari said.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" Kari, TK, Yolei and Cody all cried.

"Armadillomon armour digivolve too…Digmon: the Drill of Knowledge! I used to say 'the Drill of Power!' but I think this makes me sound smarter."

"Hawkmon armour digivolve too…Halsemon: the Wings of Love!"

"Gatomon armour digivolve too…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

"Patamon armour digivolve too…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

Digmon used his Gold Rush to blast a hole in the base so that we could get out of the base, everyone mounting their partners as TK pulled me up on his flying horse behind him and Cody was picked up by his partner.

Magnamon and Kimeramon also decided to take the fight outside too.

"Come on everyone. Follow me!" Digmon said as he jumped out.

"I'll follow him." Pegasusmon said as he flew out.

"I'll follow you." Nerfertimon said flying out.

"I'll follow you." Halsemon said swooping out.

"Now that's what I call following orders." Digmon said as the four digimon flew off away from the falling base and fighting digimon.

I looked back over feeling worry for Magnamon and also a bit for Wormmon and Ken.

A Devidramon was on the base and took to the skies, Ken and his partner on it's head as the base finally crash landed in the sand, sending a storm of it flying up.

"Oh, the humanity." Halsemon said.

We all got down to see Magnamon send out these powerful lights at Kimeramon, making him roar in pain, but after the lights faded, he roared again still rearing to go while Magnamon was starting to slowly fall from the air.

Kimeramon reached out and grabbed him in one of his arms, squeezing the life out of him.

"MAGNAMON!" I cried out in worry.

Suddenly, he began to glow along with Wormmon, who was on top of Devidramon.

Worrmon the pushed Ken off before Devidramon took to the air and went off to where Magnamon was.

They both were taking about something, but Magnamon was refusing something.

He then sent out these rockets from his body, making Kimeramon let him go before Magnamon grabbed Wormmon and threw him down over to where we were, making me run up and catch the caterpillar

"What happened up there?" I asked.

"I tried to give Magnamon my strength, but he refused saying that he would handle it myself." He said sadly as he grunted in pain.

Oh, V, please be safe.

You promised you would come back to me.

Looking up to my dragon, he was covered in an orb of light that expanded until it reached Kimeramon, destroying him for good.

Everyone cheered as Wormmon sat up on my shoulders watching.

Magnamon started falling from the sky, making me run up to him.

"Dai, I'm sorry, but…this is it." he said.

"What? No, don't say that!" I cried as he was starting to slowly come apart.

Starting from the bottom, he was slowly turning into data.

"I promised that I would come back to you. Just believe that you want me back and it'll happen. All you have to do is believe." He said.

Tears fell down my face as he finally exploded into data, gone.

My body felt drained of energy as I fell to my hands and knees, sobbing hard.

"I'm sorry." Wormmon whimpered.

"I-It wasn't your fault. D-Don't b-blame yourself. He was brave and now he's gone." I sobbed.

Something glinted in the sand under me, making me blink back my tears in curiosity at the amethyst and gold that were in the sand.

I reached out and picked them both up, looking them over while Wormmon gasped.

"What are these things?" I asked.

"I don't know about the gold one, but that one is the Crest of Kindness. It belongs to Ken. The second one must belong to you." He said.

Wiping my tears away, I got up and walked over to where Ken was in the sand, yelling things as the others all gathered around him.

"I lost. I'm a failure. This isn't what was supposed to happen. I was flawless. My plans were supposed to work out perfectly. How'd it happen? You must have cheated somehow! That's the only possible explanation! I only have one choice left and that's just to cheat myself. I'll start over. I'll just have to re-set the Digital World!" he said hitting the ground.

"Re-set the Digital World? What're you talking about, Ken?" TK asked.

"It's simple. I'll just go home and delete all of the Digital World data off of my computer and create a new program. That way I can start a new Digital World that doesn't cheat." Ken said.

"You've completely lost your mind." I said.

"The Digital World is a completely real place, Ken. It's not just something that's programed into your computer." Yolei said.

"We tried to tell you that before, but thought we were trying to play some kind of a trick on you." TK said.

"Huh?" Ken asked.

"This isn't some kind of a video game. Ken, digimon are real and it's about time you realized what you've been doing." Cody said making the fallen Emperor look over at him in confusion.

"What?" he asked looking at the digimon.

"You've been hurting innocent creatures, Ken. You even killed one of them." Kari said sternly as she placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"Your digimon were all at the soccer game in the real world. I remember now. You are real. Not just computer data. I can't believe that I never figured that out." Ken said.

"And you've constantly been abusing digimon ever since you've claimed to be the Digimon Emperor." I said.

"I had no idea. What have I done? I thought my dark rings were a stroke of genius. I never realized I was causing pain. I made them work for me tirelessly without ever giving them a break and I was cruel to them beyond imagination!" Ken said with a crazed look as he dug his fingers in his hair.

"I'M A MONSTER! I can't believe what I've done!" he yelled.

"It's hard to argue with you there, Ken. You've done some pretty horrible stuff." TK said.

"The important thing is you've realized what you've done and it's not too late to make a fresh start." Kari said.

"WHAT HAVE I DONE?!" Ken cried as he threw off his gloves and got up walking away, falling down into the sand as he threw his glasses away and his entire Emperor outfit dissolved into data particles and he sobbed.

Wormmon crawled off of my shoulder and went over to his fallen partner.

"Ken, I always knew you were kind. You've returned back to your old self." He said making Ken look at him with sorrowful blue eyes.

"I'm sorry. It's too late for me." He whimpered.

"It's never too late to be sorry." Wormmon said.

"Wormmon is absolutely right, Ken." I said kneeling down in front of him.

He looked at me in surprise as one of the Crests in my hands glowed and floated over to him, making him catch it with a look of awe.

"Where'd you find those things, Daisuke?" TK asked.

"In the sand. Wormmon said that they belonged to Ken and I. Why do you ask?" I asked him.

"It looks like one of the Crests we used to have in the old days." The child of Hope said.

"You're right, TK and it has the Crest of Kindness on it." Kari said.

"But why's it coming to me?" Ken asked astonished.

"Because it belongs to you, Ken. It's the crest of Kindness." Wormmon groaned as he fought to stay awake.

"There must be some mistake. I've been anything but kind." Ken said.

"That's what Wizardmon meant when he told us that 'Kindness will release the Golden Radiance'. Ken and Daisuke must be the keys to unlocking the power." Gatomon said.

"I told you that deep inside you were kind." Wormmon said as Ken picked him up, his eyes filled with unshed tears.

"But I was so terrible. Because of me, Daisuke lost her partner." He said.

Without warning, I slapped him across the face,

Everyone was shocked, staring at me as I gave a small smile.

"You're forgiven." I said as tears fell from my eyes again.

He looked shocked at this as he touched his red cheek.

The Crest I was holding started to give off a faint glow, making us all look at it.

"The Crest of Miracles is reacting." Patamon said.

Then, light shined from up in the air making us all look up to see the baby blue light was oval shaped as it fell down towards us.

It fell into my arms, the glow fading away to reveal a baby blue egg with red stripes on it.

"What is that?" Yolei asked.

"It must be Veemon." Cody said.

"It's just like when Angemon sacrificed himself to save me. After he faded away into data, he came back and turned into a digi egg. Veemon did the same thing." TK said smiling.

A smile curved my lips as I hugged the egg, feeling the familiar presence of my little dragon inside of it and placed a kiss on it.

"He really did keep his promise." I cried.

Ken then stood up and started walking away with Wormmon in his arms, waving at us.

I stood up, watching him go.

"I wonder where he's going. I hope he'll be OK." Cody said.

"Let's just get back home." TK said.

All of us walked back to the place the portal was, Yolei opening it up and we were pulled through, landing in a pile on Izzy in the middle of the woods.

We all got up, Izzy staring at the digi egg I held curiously.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It's a long story." Kari groaned.

"We'll tell you later. Come on, let's get back to the camp grounds." TK said.

We all got up and walked to the camp, seeing Tai and Matt were sitting at a picnic table looking very stressed out and shocked and I was shocked too when I saw that my sister was with them eating pudding.

"There they are." Matt said.

"Hey, Jun, who invited you to come all the way out here?" I asked.

"Matt did!" she cheered making the two older boys exhale in exasperation.

After a while after I kept my sister busy by talking with while and the others filled Izzy, Matt and Tai in on what had happened, we were getting ready to leave.

"Hey guys! Wait for me!" Jun called as she ran over to the van.

"That was a close one." Tai groaned as he and the other two teenagers packed up the bags in the back of the van.

"Hey, would it be Ok to get a ride home with you guys? I don't wanna take the bus all by myself." Jun said.

"No, there isn't enough room. You're gonna have to take the bus. Sorry." I said sitting down next to Kari.

My sister pouted as she gripped her back pack handles.

"It's not fair!" she whined.

"Come on, kids. That's not nice. Someone take the bus with Jun." Hiroaki said as all of us looked at each other.

"That's very nice of you, sir. And I already have the perfect volunteer in mind." Jun said as Matt ran over looking nervous.

"And the absolutely perfect volunteer is TK!" he said.

"Matt, you take the bus home with Jun." Hiroaki said making his eldest son look at him in disbelief.

"I'm broke!" he said.

"There's more than enough here." Hiroaki said handing Matt some cash.

"Have fun you two." Tai sang teasingly.

"Have her home before curfew." Izzy teased.

"I'll trade for your seat." Matt tried to bribe looking desperate.

I almost stepped out to relieve him, but Jun closed the door before I could make a move and she jokingly stuck her tongue out at me.

"Don't be silly, you'll sit with me." She said making Matt shout in fear.

Really, sis, can't you take a hint?

"Come on, hunk. We better go catch the bus. It's a long ride." She said linking arms with him.

"Please, TK, I'll give you my college money!" Matt begged making me sigh as I opened up the door, grabbed my sister's arm and threw her into the seat as I stepped out and stood beside Matt.

"Just go with them. I'll take the bug with Matt. You had too much of a journey anyway." I said since she told me about the bus, our grandparents giving her a ride and ending up at the wrong camp.

"But-"Jun said before I slammed the door in her face.

"Just go." I said and the engine started as Hiroaki drove off.

Matt sighed and nearly collapsed against me in relief.

"Thank you. Man, your sister just doesn't know when to give up." He said.

"She probably would if you got a girlfriend. The last guy she liked she stalked like she does you. The only thing that made her stop was when he started dating someone." I said.

"Really?" he asked.

I nodded, then felt the egg in my arms start to move.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I think it's about to hatch!" he said.

The egg kept moving until it stopped and then it exploded, pink smoke filling the air around us.

We both coughed until the smoke blew away to reveal a cute blue head with a tail and violet eyes.

"Veemon?" I asked stunned.

"I'm Chibomon now. I'm the baby form of Veemon. I told you I would come back to you and I would never lie to you, Dai." He said.

"That took less time than it did with Patamon. It must be that Crest of Miracles." Matt said as Chibomon cuddled up to my chest.

The two of us walked off to the bus stop and sat together as the ride back home went on, me hugging Chibomon as I fell asleep, hoping that things with Ken and Wormmon were fine.

And that all of the trouble in the Digital world was done with now.

To be continued…


	22. A Blue Dragon

"The Blue Dragon"

**This is the 'Davis Cries Wolfmon' episode, but I changed the title up. Hope you guys like the changes made and I also decided to give some discriptions on what my four main ocs look like. I mean, I drew them up too on if you want to check them out too. Please enjoy and review!**

Kari and some other girls danced around our side of the gym gracefully as classical music played, looking very graceful as she danced.

TK and my boys were on their side of the gym getting ready to play basketball while Demiveemon, Gatomon and Patamon were watching us up in the bleachers.

A smile curved my lips as the three danced with each other, giggling as they did so.

"Daisuke, come on. Quit day dreaming and join in." Kari said taking my hands and pulling me in to the dance.

"Come on, you know I'm not the dancer type." I said backing off, wishing to be with the boys as they played sports.

"You guys are lame. Watch me. Nothing but net!" I heard Takeshi say and turned to see him make a basket.

"The basketball game's about to start. Go, TK!" Kari cheered making the girls giggle.

Poor, TK.

He has a fan club just like his big brother.

"Kai, make sure Takeshi doesn't goof up badly and get hurt." I called.

The blonde looked over to me with a smile, understanding twinkling in his gray eyes.

"Got it!" he said giving a thumbs up.

"Jump ball!" the male gym teacher said as he blew the whistle and tossed the ball up.

Rei and TK both made a jump for the ball, the blonde managing to steal it away from the brunette.

"Try to stop me, Takeshi, if you can." TK said as the black haired, tanned skinned boy tried to steal the ball from him, but was tripped up.

TK tossed the ball at the net and it went through, making the girls cheered and I sighed at one of my boys' making out with the floor.

"Nice shot." Kari said.

"Team work, baby!" TK said as he slapped hands with one of his teammates.

Satoshi ran over and the orange haired boy gave Takeshi a hand up.

"Come on; let's get back into the game." Satoshi said.

As the game went on, my boys were made to look like complete amateurs on the basketball court.

"Oh, I can't look." I groaned covering my eyes.

"Dai, no offence, but your boys aren't as good as they are on the soccer field." TK said as he came up to me.

My hands moved from my eyes as my four boys ran over, Takeshi pouting.

"Hey, it's not my fault these guys don't know how to pass." The black haired boy said.

"I think they're starting to learn." TK said.

Takeshi turned, just as a basketball went flying to his face, but Kai caught it before it hit him.

"It wasn't that bad." Satoshi said blinking his violet eyes.

I took the ball away from Kai and took aim at the child of Hope's team's net and threw the ball, it sailed through the air and sunk right into the net with a swish.

The boys looked shocked while Kari and the digimon cheered.

"That's how you do it." I said making TK snap out of his stupor and giggle.

**(After school…)**

Kari, TK and I were in the computer room as Yolei and Cody ran in, panting.

"_You're late."_ I sang as I fed Demiveemon.

The thing that made him grow faster was sleep and food, so I kind of spent the last few days spoiling him to get him to grow.

And as for the Crest of Miracles I got, I managed to make a necklace out of it.

"Yeah, we know. Sorry." Cody said bowing his head as Upamon and Poromon hopped out of the school bags.

"Don't worry about it." TK said.

"Is everybody ready?" Yolei asked as she pulled out her D-3.

"Yeah." We all said doing the same.

"Then let's do it. Digi port open!" she said as we were all pulled through the gate.

All of us landed in a forest area that looked kind of messed up with broken branches up in the trees and there were even some fallen trees around us while others looked like they had been attacked by a digimon.

"You know, I'm surprised that with the Digimon Emperor gone, we're still able to come to the Digital World." Cody said.

"Of course we can still come here. I don' know about the rest of you, but with the Digimon Emperor gone, I plan on having a little fun in the digi-sun. Don't you think we deserve it?" Yolei asked.

"Well, yeah." TK and Cody said with nervous smiles.

"What about you, Kari? Do you agree with me?" Yolei asked.

"Well…" Kari and Gatomon said.

"There'll be plenty of time for rest and relaxation later, Yolei, but that's not why we came to the Digital World today." I pointed out.

"I know, I know. We're here to restore the Digital World to the way it was before the Digimon Emperor took over." The child of Love and Sincerity said.

"That's right. There are a lot of areas that are in pretty bad shape, and we're part of the reason for it. That's why we have to get to work." I said.

"All right, Yolei, give us a damage report on all the different areas." Cody said.

"OK. Let me pull it up on the D-terminal. The mountain area's pretty bad." Yolei said as we saw a video feed of the mountains where the Gotsumon were working.

"I guess then…we'll take it." TK said.

"The Gotsumon rock." Patamon said.

"Next is the city. Wow, that looks in pretty bad shape too." Yolei said as she pulled up a video of it.

It showed the Vegiemon and Gazimon working and talking about food, which caught Armadillomon's interest.

"Did ya hear that, Cody? You get a free lunch. Let's go." He said running off.

"Wait for me." The child of Knowledge and Reliability called as he ran after him.

"Aw, man. He beat me to it." Veemon pouted making me laugh.

"Let's take a look at the farmlands." Yolei said pulling up a video of the Gekomon and some other digimon working in the fields.

"OK then, we'll take that one." I said sharing a smile with Veemon.

"Wait, I wanted that area." Kari said.

"Me too." Gatomon said.

"How about rock paper scissors?" Veemon asked.

"Fine with me." I shrugged.

"Let's do it." Kari smiled.

We both ended by with paper, then went again and both got rock.

The last time we did it, she got scissors while I had paper making her cheer as she clasped hands with Gatomon.

"OK, the next area is the lake." Hawkmon said.

"We'll take that one." I said as we started heading off to our areas to take care of the problems.

Once we were at the lake, Veemon helped the Vegiemon carry a log and I also helped out.

After our work at the lake was done, we took a break and just walked through the forest.

I was looking down at the Crest I was wearing, wondering why I even got one now and why Ken had one.

Was there a reason for it?

Did we need them for some reason?

"Dai, do you think I'll be able to digivolve?" Veemon's voice broke me out of my thoughts.

"What are you talking about? You can already digivolve." I stated.

"No, normal digivolve like Patamon, Gatomon, Agumon, Gabumon and the others all can." He said.

"Who knows? I mean, maybe you can, but I'm not really sure." I said biting my bottom lip.

Thoughts of what Matt and Tai had told me of how the digimon in the past digivolved came to mind.

"Maybe if you got scared or I was in danger it would make you digivolve." I said.

He nodded in thought as we walked over to an old rope bridge and walked over it, Veemon making sure he was close so that I wouldn't fall.

The bridge started shaking a little too much and one of the ropes snapped, making us yell as we clung to the side of it.

"Let's get offa this thing!" Veemon yelled.

We both started running for safety, but the ropes were snapping too much and far too fast.

The second rope broke and we both fell off of the bridge, yelling as we headed right down into the lake.

The freezing cold water was a shock, making me kick up to the surface, coughing as I shook my bangs out of my face as I looked around for Veemon.

"V? Where are you?" I called feeling worried.

Ever since I first lost him and watched him turn into data it made me worry even more than I usually do about his safety.

When a blue head popped out from the water that was when I calmed down.

"That was convenient." He said spitting water out of his mouth.

We both swam to shore, me wringing out my clothes and hair.

"No kidding." I said

The two of us started off on our walk again, looking for TK and Patamon near the mountain area, but they weren't there.

"Great, where did they go?" I asked looking up in the air for the golden flying horse or the orange hamster/bat.

As we walked, Veemon stepped on a part of the cliff side that was weak and he nearly fell,, but I grabbed him in time as a few large rocks fell down the side.

"That was close." I sighed holding him to my chest.

"Yeah." He sighed.

We watched as the rocks fell down as a digimon was walking by, both of us looking nervous as the rocks hit him on the head.

He was a big guy that looked like a turtle made of rock.

He growled as he was hit, then looked up at us glaring with those blue eyes of his.

"Um, sorry about that. It was an accident." I called down.

"I am Tortomon. I am a turtle type digimon, but I hide my head from no one. I use my strong Terrapriss attack to be hard on my enemies." He said.

"Enemies?" I asked nervously as he snarled at us.

"But it was an accident and we apologized." Veemon pointed out.

Tortomon roared as he climbed up the side of the cliff, Veemon and I running away from him.

What does it take with these guys?

We already apologized, so why is he coming after us?

Tortomon chased up all over the place, neither of us stopping even when we ran passed our friends to get away from the crazed turtle.

He managed to corner us at a mountain area that had a dead end for us.

"Oh, this isn't good." I whimpered as I stared down at the rocky beach down below.

Tortomon stopped behind us, taking his time to catch his breath since we were cornered and had nowhere else to go.

The ball was in his field now, so he called the shots.

"We're dead." Veemon said as we held onto each other as Tortomon's hot, gross breath fell on us from his panting.

He roared again at us, getting ready to end us and lifted his body up so he had more power to stomp on us, but we split up, going into two different directions.

The turtle decided to come after me, though.

Veemon tried to use his V Head-Butt, but he was hit by Tortomon's tail, knocking him down.

"V!" I called.

"Boy, do I have a headache." He groaned as he was on the ground.

Tortomon turned to him, but I grabbed at his spikes on his head.

"No, leave him alone!" I yelled.

He roared at me as he tossed me off of his head and I landed on the ground hard, yelping in pain as I landed on a rock.

"Dai!" Veemon called.

My digivice whined as soft blue light flooded from it as my dragon was covered in lights as well, catching my and Tortomon's attention.

"Veemon digivolve too…EXVEEMON!"

I gasped in surprise and smiled at the sight of the large blue and white dragon with wings, a blade on his head-why do almost all of his forms have some sort of blade?-and a silver X on his chest.

"You did it, V! You made it to the Champion level." I cheered.

"I feel like a new mon. Dai, wait till you see my V Laser attack. It'll make my V Head-Butt attack look like a tap on the shoulder." ExVeemon said.

The two digimon charged at each other, Tortomon ramming ExVeemon in the gut and sent him down on his back.

He then stepped on him, but ExVeemon gave him one hard kick and knocked Tortomon down next.

That's my boy.

My dragon then grabbed the turtle by his tail and spun him around in a circle until he had enough power to let him go, sending the turtle about thirty feet away and landed on the ground hard enough to shake it.

Tortomon got back up, his spikes on his back glowing as he blasted them at ExVeemon, but he just punched them all, breaking them as they hit his large fists.

The two digimon carged at each other again, ExVeemon jumping over him and gave him a kick in the back, sending Tortomon down.

My dragon turned back to him as his chest glowed orange, then released his V Laser attack, which was weird since it was a large laser in the shape of an X and sent Tortomon flying into the river below the cliff.

"Ah! That was awesome!" I shrieked happily and even jumped a bit in glee.

ExVeemon and I looked over the ledge to see that Tortomon was on the shore and spun around, bringing up a small sand storm before he came out of his shell making us yell.

"Can't this guy take a hint?" I asked tugging at my hair.

"I think he can." ExVeemon said as we watched Tortomon walk away from us, laughing.

The sun was going down as we went to find the others, ExVeemon carrying me on his strong shoulder.

"So this is what it feels like to be a Champion." He mussed as we found the group in the forest where we had first arrived.

"Hey guys. Meet ExVeemon, Veemon's Champion form." I smiled.

"I'm already fond of Veemon and I'm sure I'll like you as well." Cody smiled.

"Now our clean-up of the Digital World will go a lot faster. Let's put him to work." Yolei said.

"All right." The others said.

"What?!" ExVeemon asked with wide scarlet eyes.

We all laughed at that, me hugging my poor dragon and kissed his cheek.

To be continued…


	23. If I had a Tail Hammer

"If I had a Tail Hammer"

**Here is the next chapter. Oh, I hope you all like the new picture I posted for this story. Please enjoy and review!**

Today we had spent the entire day working on Primary Village, the place where the baby digimon are born/hatched and are taken care of by an Electmon that TK and Patamon were friends with before they are old enough to set off on their own.

"Well, that was a good day's work." I said as we stood above a cliff overlooking the village as the sun set, turning the sky orange and pink.

"Yeah, good work everyone." Yolei said.

"We painted everything in sight and some things that weren't." Kari said but then sighed sadly as a soft breeze blew her hair back.

"You know, even with fresh paint and some new roof, Primary Village still seems kind of sad." She said.

"You're right." Gatomon sighed.

"Maybe some cute carpenter will come by." Yolei joked.

"If one shows up, the only place he's going is to work." Cody said.

"I volunteer to be his helper." Yolei said.

"Boy, that jerk really left the Digital World in a big mess, didn't he?" TK asked.

"You gotta wonder; what is he up to now?" Kari asked as she looked up to the sky as Gatomon looked at her surprised.

"Is he just playing with us to think he's nice?" the child of Light asked.

"Well, if he really is nice, then he'd be here like us cleaning this place up." TK said.

"That's for sure." Veemon agreed.

"But Ken's not coming back to the Digital World anymore, uh, right?" Yolei asked.

"One wouldn't think so." Hawkmon said.

"Yeah, I don't think the digimon would forgive him for what he did." TK said.

"That's for sure." Cody silently growled as he frowned at the ground.

"You sound mad." Armadillomon pointed out as he looked back at him.

"Well, you're right. I can't forgive him either. Not ever." Cody said.

I was silent during all of this having mixed emotions.

I had already forgiven Ken for what he had done to Veemon and all the evil he's done because I know that there's kindness inside of him and a pure soul too.

You just have to look deep inside to see it.

The others probably won't even bother though.

"Let's just get back home. It's getting late and I need to get home before Jun starves." I said.

"Great idea." Veemon said.

"Let's get going." Yolei said.

We all went back to the portal and were soon standing outside of the school gates to depart to our own homes.

"Well, I've got a kendo lesson to get to. See ya later." Cody said.

"Guess we'll just have to pig out without cha." TK said.

"Have fun at your lesson." Kari said.

"Thanks." Cody said.

"Let's get to Dai's." TK said making Gatomon, Demiveemon and Patamon cheer.

"Whoa, who said you guys were invited? I'm not cooking for an army." I said as we all started walking, waving to Cody as we went.

"But you're the best cook out of us all." The child of Hope whined.

Groaning, I allowed them all to follow me home and I had to cook four times as much food than I would usually make, surprising Jun.

**(The next day…)**

It was nearing the end of the day when we would all have to go to the computer lab, but my last class was canceled due to our teacher having an allergic reaction to the food at lunch and since no one on staff was able to sub for him, my class was free to do whatever we wanted.

My boys were playing a game of soccer while I sat on the bleachers watching them, deep in thought about Ken.

Deep in my heart, I had faith in him, but the others don't.

If only there was a way for me to change their minds.

"Hey, Dai." Someone said making me look over to see a tall blonde teenager smiling up at me.

"Hey, Matt." I sighed as he walked up to where I was sitting and took a seat beside me.

"You feeling all right? You look kind of down." He said.

Biting my lip, I turned to look at him hoping that he could help me out.

"Matt…do you think that…Ken deserves his chance at redemption?" I asked stunning him.

"Why do you ask?" was his response as he gave me a look that said he was going to listen to what I said before he made any comments.

"Well, it's just…when I was pulled into the Dark Ocean, it had me thinking…maybe Ken was dragged there too and it made him the way he was. I mean, if Ken were in emotional pain like I was, then he could've been taken. He has the Crest of Kindness for pity sake. It was because of him that I found my Crest of Miracles. There's something inside of me screaming to not give up on him, to give him a chance to right the wrongs he's done. Am I crazy for wanting to help him?" I asked looking deep into azure eyes with pleading chocolate eyes.

Matt smiled and shook his head as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

"No, I don't think so. After all of the terrible things Ken's done as the Digimon Emperor, he's going to need someone to act as his rock to keep him steady and strong during his journey. I think you're the perfect person for the job." He said.

I smiled at him; feeling like a great weight had been lifted off of my shoulders as he told me this.

At least I know he has my back on this, but will the others.

Maybe it's the children who inherit Friendship that have a better understanding of these matters.

The bell then rang, making us both look up at the clock.

"Well, I should get going now. Good luck today." Matt said standing up.

As he walked down the steps, I bit my lip as I tried to gather my courage to do something.

"Um, Matt?" I called.

He stopped and turned to me as I got up and quickly placed a kiss on his cheek, my own heating up in a blush.

As I pulled away, he gave me a startled look as his cheeks were dusted with pink.

"Th-Thanks for l-listening." I said with a smile as I took off to go meet up with the others at the computer lab.

**(In the lab…)**

By the time I got to the lab, everyone was already there.

"What took you?" Yolei asked.

"I was outside with the guys." I said.

"Huh? But you had history last period." Kari said.

"Mr. Mori got sick and there was no sub, so we had a free period." I explained making everyone nod in understanding.

"All right, ready?" Yolei asked.

"Back to Primary Village we go. Digi port open!" she called as we all held up our D-3s and were pulled in.

When we landed, these adorable baby digimon that were heads that had three horns and were head with big black eyes were there, saying 'hi' to us.

"We have new friends." I said as I bent down to look at the little cuties.

"Let's play. Let's play." They said.

"Well, they sure weren't here yesterday." Cody said.

"Maybe it's 'cause yesterday we rebuilt the nursery school." Armadillomon said.

"So logic dictates they were all students there." Hawkmon said.

"I gotcha. So if we restore things to the way they were, then all of the digimon will return as well, right?" Yolei asked as the babies all bounced around cheering.

"Right, so let's keep working." TK said with a smile and hands on his hips.

"Aw, they are cute, don't you think, Dai?" Kari asked as she kneeled down and cuddled one.

"They sure are." I laughed as a group of them nuzzled my legs.

"Veemon, let's get to work." I said pulling out my D-3 as he nodded with a bright smile.

"Veemon digivolve too…uh oh." He said.

"What just happened?" I asked staring at the Rookie level dragon.

How was that possible?

"I don't know." He shrugged as he had a determined look on his face and went for it again.

"Veemon digivolve too…Veemon. I'm still Veemon." He said upset.

"I guess my digivolving's all off today." He said.

"This doesn't make any sense. You digivolved perfectly fine yesterday." I said feeling worried.

"WHAT CAN'T I DIGIVOLVE?! TELL ME WHHHHHHYYYYY! I'm done." He said getting it out of his system.

"Is there any chance you ate some bad chocolate?" Hawkmon asked.

"Hmm-mm. Nope." Veemon said shaking his head.

"Maybe chicken soup might help, huh?" Armadillomon suggested.

"But he's eaten way too much already. Maybe that's the problem. All that food he ate before is weighing him down. I mean, it's possible, right?" I asked not knowing what else it could be.

"Maybe." Yolei said.

Smiling down at Veemon, I bent down behind him and gathered him up into my arms and hugged him as the others knelt down behind me and were talking.

Great, they were discussing things behind my back again.

"You just rest up for now. The others will find out what the problem is, since they have a theory and aren't telling me…again!" I said darkly as I slowly turned a glare on them.

TK chuckled nervously as he held up his hands while the others hid behind him.

"We-We were gonna tell ya." He said.

Veemon and I both gave him a look of disbelief.

The blonde sighed in defeat as Kari stood up.

"We think a control spire might be nearby." She said.

"One that we may have missed." Gatomon said.

"Is that all? Then just go take care of it while the rest of us work on fixing up Primary Village and babysit the Punimon." I said.

"You're sure about this?" Patamon asked.

"We'll be fine." Veemon nodded.

"Then we'll get moving to check things out. Good luck here." TK said as he, Kari, Patamon and Gatomon walked off leaving the rest of us alone.

Let's hope they find out soon.

**(Later…)**

Yolei was blowing up a beach ball as Digmon and Halsemon stood around her, Cody next to Veemon and I.

It had been decided that since my dragon couldn't digivolve normally and we weren't sure he truly was sick or if there was a control spire, then we should look after the Punimon to keep them out of trouble.

"Here." Yolei panted as she handed me the duel orange beach ball.

"Digmon and I are going to get back to work and finish fixing those water lines." Cody said.

"OoooK." Yolei said.

"Halsemon and I will work on the construction. See ya." Yolei said as she got on her partner's back and took off, then Cody left with Digmon.

Watching them leave, I then looked down at the Punimon who looked at me expectantly.

"Now what do we do?" Veemon asked.

Laughing, I started kicking the ball from one foot to the other like I would in soccer, the Punimon watching in awe.

"This game is called soccer. You play with your feet, chest and head, but you can't touch it with your hands unless you're the goalie. Now, the goalie is the person that in inside a net or a zone where the ball is supposed to be kicked into to win the game. Got it?" I asked as they all cheered, ready to play.

"Here it comes, Veemon!" I called kicking it over to him.

"Got it!" he said.

He jumped up and stopped the ball with his chest, then started kicking it around.

"Great, now let's see if you guys can do it too." I said smiling at the Punimon who all cheered.

I ran after Veemon, the babies chasing after me as we all got into the game.

We all came to the playground, the Punimon bouncing the ball on their heads over to their teammates, having fun now that they had something to do.

"Great work." I encouraged with a clap.

After a while a playing, the ground shook and near one of the cute little houses there was a small whirlwind of dirt near it.

Now what's going on?

Turning, I saw Kari, TK and Yolei were working on some houses behind me.

"Let's check it out." I called.

They nodded and ran up to me as I started to run over to check out what was happening, the babies staying back since they were afraid.

All of a sudden, this huge yellow and purple digimon with spikes all over its body rose out of the ground with Cody in its paw and then set him down gently.

Could that be…did Armadillomon digivolve?

Just then, these rocks started flying around and Cody was swept up in it as this mini digimon named Thundermon appeared, buzzing around.

Cody would have been sent blasting off if a large insectoid digimon hadn't arrived and caught him.

Thundermon charged at them, so the mysterious digimon placed Cody back in the spikey digimon's paws as he went to fight.

OK, I am so lost here.

"Cody!" we all called when we reached him.

"Are you all right?" Gatomon asked.

"Oh, wow. Just who is that?" TK gasped.

"Yeah." Cody said

"We're both fine." The big guy holding him said.

"That's good news, but, um…" Yolei trailed off as she swooped in on Halsemon.

"So, Cody, is that Digmon?" Halsemon asked.

"Yes, Armadillomon at the Champion level." The child of Knowledge and Reliability said.

"He digivolved?" Kari asked.

"How?" I asked.

There was a buzzing noise, so we all looked up to see Thundermon and the new guy flying around each other, like a boxing getting ready to go for an opening.

"Who's that digimon up there?" Patamon asked.

"Nobody knows." Ankylomon said.

"That big green one helped us out. In fact, he really saved my life." Cody said.

The so called hero then had this purple blade appear on his arm called Spiking Strike and hit Thundermon, completely turning him into data right before our eyes.

"He was…vaporized!" Yolei whimpered in shock.

"Look, up there!" Kari suddenly called.

We looked over to the house she was pointing at to see someone we weren't expecting step out from behind the chimney he was hiding behind.

"Ken?" I asked.

"What is he doing in the Digital World?" Kari asked.

The insectoid then flew right by us, his orange eyes meeting mine for a brief second and my eyes widened as I realized who that was.

He flew up over to Ken and glowed as he started de-digivolving.

"Watch out." Yolei cried.

Ken held his arm out as his partner shrunk back to his Rookie form, resting in his arms safely and peacefully.

"Wormmon." I said.

"Ken's back…and Wormmon can digivolve?" TK asked.

Ken then hopped down off of the roof, walking away from us before we could get any answers.

"So Wormmon saved Cody." I said.

"I guess that's right." Yolei said stunned.

Great, nothing is making sense at all today.

But with the return of Ken and Wormmon…what does this mean for us?

To be continued…


	24. Spirit Needle

"Spirit Needle"

**Here is the next chapter. Please enjoy and review!**

"Lunch room duty. Yuck." Kari said as we walked down the halls carrying a large pot of food.

We were both dressed in a white chef's cloak and hat and we had to serve the food to our classmates today.

"Tell me about it. I hate having to do this." I said as we came into the room.

Everyone lined up, my soccer teammates being first to get served since they ran to be in front of the line.

Thinking back to what had happened when we were in Primary Village; I cleared my throat and decided to talk to Kari about this.

"You know, about Ken…I don't think he's a bad person. I've already forgiven him for some of the things he's done. Don't you think he deserves a chance to atone?" I asked.

"I'm not sure." Kari said.

She didn't answer me as she was focussing on serving, but she also seemed to be deep in thought about what I said.

Hopefully she'll agree with me.

**(Later…)**

My next choice was Cody, who I found at the back staircase of the school practicing his kendo moves.

"Ken is one of us Digidestinds. It's obvious and even Kari pointed it out." I said.

Cody just frowned as he continued with his movements.

"He also has a Crest and I believe that it counts for something. He belongs with us." I said.

He grunted loudly as he swung his kendo stick down fiercely, making it known what he felt.

Sighing, I stood up and turned to leave.

"Just think about it, please." I said.

**(End of the day…)**

Yolei was found in the computer room with the In-Training digimon eating the goodies she had brought for them.

"Ken's changed and I know it. But how's he going to prove that he's really a good person if we don't even give him a chance?" I asked.

"I don't know." Yolei sighed sadly as she sat backwards on a chair.

"What do you mean?" I asked hoping to get somewhere with her, while the others all failed.

"I think Ken can change too, especially after Veemon faded away into data, it seemed he finally realized the digimon are living creatures that have feelings. But after our last battle in the Digital World, I'm not so sure. He seemed a whole lot like the old Ken to me. The way he mercilessly ordered Stingmon to go in for the kill, that poor digimon. It was just horrible! I'm sorry, Daisuke, but I don't think I can trust him, after what he did." she said.

Growling in annoyance, I turned and went to leave and take matters into my own hands.

"Hey, Dai, wait for me!" Demiveemon called as he ran out after me just as I passed TK and Patamon.

"Hey, Dai, what's up?" the child of Hope asked with a smile.

"My friends are all jerks who don't understand forgiveness." I said as I passed by him with my partner on my shoulder.

**(Sunset…)**

I had gone to Tamachi with Demiveemon hiding inside my backpack to go find Ken and talk to him and see if I could reason with him.

My Crest then started glowing faintly and I heard this voice is my mind telling me where to go, so I walked off to where it was leading me.

There I found Ken, holding his own glowing Crest, on a bridge.

Our Crests both stopped glowing and he looked up to see me, startled.

"Daisuke?" he asked.

"Hey." I said walking over with a smile.

"Can we talk?" I asked.

He nodded, so we moved down to stand by the lake that was under the bridge.

"So what brings you here, Daisuke? Have you come to tell me I've been a bad boy?" he asked after five minutes of awkward silence.

"You aren't a bad person, Ken." I said.

"I'm not?" he asked shocked.

"Of course not. So you did some bad things. There has to have been a reason for it, right?" I asked looking at him.

Ken kept his eyes focussed on the water in front of us.

Sighing, I decided to just take the plunge and ask.

"Do you know what the Dark Ocean is?" I asked.

He gasped and stiffened at the mention, meaning that I may be right.

Slowly, he turned to me with confusion and fear reflecting in his eyes.

"How do you know about that place?" he asked.

"Because I've been there." I said shocking him even further.

"I've had nightmares for weeks about the place and one day it finally pulled me into the Dark Ocean. I wouldn't have been able to get free if it weren't for my friends coming after me." I said.

Frowning, he turned and looked back out to the water.

I placed a hand on his shoulder, both our Crests giving off a faint glow just from the simple touch.

"Look, I don't know what you went through and you probably don't want to talk about it, but just know that I'm here to listen if you need someone to talk to. After all, you are one of us." I said.

He looked at me again in surprise while I gave him a smile and started walking, Demiveemon popping his head out of my bag and waved at him.

"Do you think he'll join soon?" my dragon asked.

"I don't know. Hopefully…but I have a feeling we're running out of time." I said.

**(The next day…)**

All of us were in the computer lab when we heard someone crying out for help from the portal, so we all went through and found ourselves in the forest and quickly had our digimon armour digivolve.

Running, we found a group of YukimiBotamon looking worried as they were around Mimi, who was hugging an unconscious Palmon.

"Mimi, we're right here!" Yolei called.

"We came as fast as we could. Are you OK? What's going on?" I asked as we all stopped beside her to see she was standing near a cliff.

"It's Golemon. He's going to destroy the dam and flood the city." Mimi said as we looked over to the dam to see a large digimon climbing up it.

"Why would he do that?" I asked.

"We're running out of time." One of the YukimiBotamon's cried.

"Where's the town?" I asked.

"At the end of the ravine. The digimon down there will be up to their digi-ears in water." Yukimi cried.

"Hey, don't worry. We won't let that happen." I said smiling at them.

The armour digimon then jumped off to go deal with Golemon and we watched.

Nefertimon and Pegasusmon used their Golden Noose and tied it around Golemon's neck while Raidramon used his Thunder Blast, Digmon used his Gold Rush and Shurimon used his Double Stars.

They all hit, but they did zero damage to him.

Shurimon jumped up to look for a dark ring, but there wasn't any.

Golemon then pulled Nefertimon and Pegasusmon down into the dam, freeing himself.

"Pegasusmon!" TK called out in worry.

Raidramon then jumped up to attack Golemon, but he was blasted by some purple smoke that knocked him back down.

"Raidramon!" I called.

Shurimon then jumped up to use his Double Stars, but he was just punched by Golemon.

"Shurimon!" Yolei cried.

"Look, he's going to do it." Cody said.

The rock head then punched a hole in the dam and water started gushing out.

"Oh, no. The town!" the Yukimis cried.

"You guys, stop the water!" Mimi called.

Our partners then got to work, Nefertimon using her Rosetta Stones to block to the hole.

"Take that you big rock head." Kari smiled.

Raidramon was running ahead of the water while the others all flew and ran to the front.

Shurimon used his Double Star to cut down the trees, Raidramon doing the same with his Thunder Blast while Pegasusmon and Nefertimon used their Golden Noose to wrap up all the trees as a fence and placed them down in front of the water while Digmon used his Rock Cracking to make a crater for the water to flow into, saving the town from drowning.

"That's what I call teamwork." Mimi said.

"Oh no! Golemon's at it again!" The Yukimis cried making us all turn to see him at it again.

"He's climbing up the dam again? Doesn't he know when to stop?" I asked annoyed.

"I don't think so." Yolei said.

"Well, he has a rock for a brain. He can't be that bright." Kari said.

"There's no way the digimon can stop that much water." Yolei said.

"Why is he so intent on flooding the town?" Cody asked.

"Golemon doesn't seem to care that there are millions of digimon down there." TK said.

"That's why we have to stop him. Those poor digimon. How do we stop Golemon without hurting him?" Yolei asked sadly.

"We don't have any choice but to resort to extreme measures." I said feeling sick about this, but we had no other choice.

"And exactly what do you mean by that, Daisuke?" Yolei asked turning to me while the others stared at me confused.

"We have to destroy him." I said.

"Have you gone completely nuts? He's a digimon. He's still a living creature, Daisuke. We have to think of another plan." She said.

"Stop being stubborn. He's doing this cruel deed of his own free will. He's a danger to everyone and we have no other choice than to destroy him. What other plan do you have?" I asked.

"What if we keep trying to protect the dam?" she asked.

"You've officially lost your mind again, haven't you? He's beating our digimon back with ease. We need to take Golemon out to protect the dam." I said.

"But at least let's try, Daisuke." She insisted.

"We already did. They're doing that now and it's not working!" I growled out pointing to our digimon who were fighting to get Golemon off the dam, but it just wasn't working at all.

"There are millions of lives at stake, so we have no other choice but to do this?" I said.

"There needs to be a better way." Yolei said.

"It's too late, Yolei. We have to act now!" I said.

"If we destroy Golemon, then we're no better than Ken and Stingmon. There must be a solution without violence." She said.

Are we really on that?

Stupid, pig headed…

"I agree with Yolei. If we destroy Golemon then we'll just be sinking to Ken's level." Cody said frowning while Yolei smiled at him.

"Right, Cody." She said.

"SHUT UP!" I yelled making everyone jump.

"I have had it with all of you. Ken is a good person and I trust him. Maybe if you all were willing to give him a chance, you'd be able to see what I do. Thundermon was threat like Golemon is and that was why he destroyed him. Being a hero isn't always easy. Sometimes we have to make hard decisions, ones that are hard, but we do it because it's necessary to save the world. Ken and Stingmon both understood that, so why can't you? I know that TK and Kari have been in these situations where they had to fight until they destroyed digimon too, so they really shouldn't see any problem with this at all." I said.

Everyone was deathly silent after my speech, TK and Kari looking deep in thought while Yolei looked torn and Cody looked annoyed.

"Daisuke is right. I think we should call Ken." Mimi spoke up.

I love this girl.

At least that's two members of the older generation that agree with me.

"Have you lost your mind, Mimi?" Yolei asked her.

"Give me your D-terminal." Mimi said and I pulled mine out, handing it over to her.

"You have got to be kidding." Yolei scoffed.

"I'm totally serious. Golemon's too powerful. We need all of the help we can get." Mimi said.

"But Ken's dangerous." Yolei said.

"Don't argue with me." Mimi said sternly.

"Mimi, how do you know we can trust him?" Yolei asked.

Golemon then roared loudly, making us all look back to see him on top of the dam and punched Shurimon down as he turned back into Hawkmon.

"Hawkmon, no!" Yolei cried.

The rest of our digimon were then sent flying back by Golemon's purple smoke, making them all return to their Rookie forms.

"Run, he's going to break the dam!" I yelled down to our injured partners.

As Golemon was about to slam his fist into the dam, he was stopped by Stingmon who flew in and grabbed his arm.

"It's Stingmon." I smiled.

Then, out of the forest across from us came Ken running out.

"I knew they'd come." I said smiling with Mimi, while the others looked shocked.

"Me too. Now Golemon has his hands full." Mimi smiled.

As Stingmon and Golemon fought on top of the dam, Palmon started stirring and moaned.

"Look everyone, Palmon's waking up." Mimi said.

"Golemon. He's not what you think. He's not even a real digimon." Palmon said shocking us all.

"I know I sound crazy, but you have to believe me on this." She said.

"What're you talking about?" Mimi asked.

"I was walking through the woods when I heard something, so I went to check it out. That's when I saw this strange woman. She was casting a spell on a control spire. There was all this bright light, I could barely see and then the control spire became Golemon." Palmon said.

"Hey, I just thought of something. Thundermon must've been one of those control spires too. I bet that Ken probably figured that out during the last battle." TK said.

"That's why he had Sting destroy him. He knew Thundermon wasn't a real digimon." I said feeling even happier about this.

"That's why Golemon attacked the dam. He's a control spire under a spell." Cody said as Stingmon was hit by that smoke and was sent back.

"I'm sorry, Ken. I was wrong." Yolei whispered as her D-3 started glowing.

Hawkmon then stood up as he was covered in rainbow lights like Yolei's D-3 was.

"Hawkmon digivolve too…AQUILAMON!"

The large bird soared through the air as all of us looked up at him in awe, happy that he finally digivolved.

"Aquilamon, Golemon is really a control spire. He's not a living digimon, so give him all you've got." Yolei called up to him.

Aquilamon flew off and used his Blast Ring, hitting Golemon and when the smoke faded away, it showed him that there was black shiny stone under it like a control spire.

Stingmon then used his Spiking Strike, while Aquilamon flew in with his Grand Horn, finishing Golemon off.

"They did it." Yolei smiled.

**(Later at sunset…)**

After our digimon climbed back to us, Ken and Wormmon came up to see us.

"I won't make any excuses and I'm sorry for what I've done." Ken said as he bowed to us.

Smiling, I looked back to the others, Veemon and I giving them expectant looks.

"Thanks for coming when we called you, Ken. We were nearly finished back there." Palmon said.

"It's the least I could do after all of the trouble I've caused. I want you to know that I have nothing to do with that weird woman who turns control spires into dark digimon. Wormmon and I discovered that she is able to charge the old control spires through some kind of dark magic." Ken said as he stood up properly.

"Ken, if you knew about the control spires, why didn't you say something?" Mimi asked as he looked down guiltily.

"Well, I…" he trailed off.

"We made the mess and we wanted to clean it up by ourselves." Wormmon said.

"You should've called a maid service." Veemon joked.

"I wasn't sure if you guys were going to believe me." Ken said.

"I don't blame you. These guys are just so stubborn and royal pains half the time, but they'd believe you if you had proof, which you did." I said smiling gently.

Ken looked at me with an unsure expression, but gave a smile grin to me.

He then turned and started walking off, Wormmon and Veemon sharing a smile before the caterpillar hopped off after his partner.

To be continued…


	25. United We Stand

"United We Stand"

**OK, here is the next chapter. Sorry for the wait. Please enjoy and review!**

"Ow. Shurimon, can you please be more careful?" I asked after he had dropped a fist sized rock on my foot.

"Sorry." He said.

"It's fine." I said as we all started lifting rocks to fix the bridge that had been broken.

"Maybe we should take a rest. We've been at this for…3 hours now." I said checking the time on my D-3.

"I'm with you." Cody said as he got up from where he was smoothing down the cement.

Everyone then got up and we went to the side of the cliff to relax and take a snack break.

Veemon, Patamon and Gatomon were eagerly sitting beside me as I pulled out the mini chicken sandwiches I had made.

"Kari, I wonder. Do you think it's possible that Ken's in some kind of danger?'" Yolei asked catching my attention since I was only a few feet away from them as I handed the food to the digimon.

"What do you mean?" Kari asked confused.

"That woman that Palmon was telling us about, I just know that she's up to no good and I think he might be in her way." The child of Love and Sincerity said.

I bit my lip at that, taking hold of my Crest as I thought about him, worried about him.

After we all finished eating and the construction of the bridge was done, we all started walking away to go home since we were tired after the long day's work.

The sound of an animal roaring made us stop and turn around to see a Minotaur digimon stomping towards the bridge.

"What does he think he's doing?" TK gasped.

"He's heading to the bridge." I said.

"Maybe he's admiring the detailed architecture." Cody suggested.

"Yeah or a way to blow it up." Kari said.

"No, not again." Yolei whined as she slumped over.

"Dai." Veemon said turning to me.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" I called.

"Veemon armour digivolve to…Raidramon: the Storm of Friendship!"

I pulled myself up onto my dragon's back and he charged off at the lake to go stop Minotarumon.

Raidramon jumped at him as the bull headed jerk started drilling into the bridge with his metal paw.

My dragon used his Thunder Blast, but Minotarumon turned and used his metal paw to whack the lightning away, then punched Raidramon, sending us both into the lake.

"Dai!" I heard TK call before I was under.

My head burst out from the water and I shook my soaked bangs out of my face as Raidramon got up from behind me.

"Taking a swim?" TK called down jokingly.

"Will you please get down here and help." I called not in the mood for this.

Raidramon charged at Minotarumon again, but was hit back into the lake as I ran over to check on him just as Aquilamon flew in after the bull.

"That's enough!" Aquilamon said as he grabbed Minotarumon by the shoulders and flew up to take him away.

Sadly, the bird dropped him since he was struggling too much and landed right on the bridge, making a huge hole in it.

Aw, come on.

We worked on that for seven hours!

"Hold on! That thing's a control spire." Kari yelled and I looked up seeing the skin on Minotarumon was chipped away on his shoulders to reveal the glossy black stone.

"It's not real." Cody said.

"It's real enough." TK said.

"You got it." Kari frowned looking at Gatomon.

"You ready?" TK asked looking at Patamon.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!" they called.

"Gatomon armour digivolve to…Nefertimon: the Angel of Light!"

"Patamon armour digivolve to…Pegasusmon: Flying Hope!"

Working together, our digimon were able to destroy Minatorumon.

Sadly, the bridge was in bad condition.

We all turned and went back home since we were all tired from our long and hard day of work and fighting.

TK and Patamon were walking Demiveemon and I home that night.

"Hey, TK?" I asked making him look at me.

"What is it, Dai?" he asked.

"Well, it's about Ken. Do you think he'll join us?" I asked him.

He seemed to stiffen as he heard the name and a small frown made its way onto his lips.

"Why do you want him to join us so badly, Dai?" he asked.

"Because I believe in second chances. He's trying so hard to make up for all of the things he's done. Besides, he was pulled into the Dark Ocean like I was and I think that's why he was turned into a monster." I said.

TK and Patamon both gasped at that as they thought back to the time they had come with Veemon and Matt to save me from that horrible place.

"Even if that's true, I don't know if I can trust him yet. I don't know if the others can." He said.

"How is it that the one who holds hope has so little of it?" I yelled at him.

TK was startled by this as I stomped away from him, grown tired of dealing with him being such a hypocrite.

He tells me to try and make friends and yet when I tell him to do the same, he shoots the idea down.

"I've seen what's inside Ken's heart because of our Crests. He's good and pure. That's his true self. Try to get to know Ken and forget the Emperor because they are two separate beings." I called.

While I was stomping away from TK, I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going.

It wasn't much of a surprise that I accidentally ran into someone, my hands coming up to steady myself and touch the chest of the male in front of me while he placed his hands on my shoulders to help me.

"I'm so sorry about that." I apologized.

"What's got you in such a bad mood, Dai?" the male asked making me blush when I realized who it was.

I looked up at Matt's face and as I thought back to what happened the last time we met, my cheeks burned a bit more.

Demiveemon was sitting up on my head as he watched us.

"It's nothing, really." I said pulling away.

Matt frowned at that as he took my hand and started pulling me to the playground where I used to go to when I was younger and we both sat down on the swings to talk.

I told him the talk I had with TK and he listened, nodding at the right times as I vented to him about how immature my friends/teammates were being.

"Keeping grudges isn't healthy. I mean, it's just another way for the darkness to rise and capture you." I said as I clung to the chains of the swing.

"I agree, but you can't control how other people think. They'll come to trust Ken in their own time." Matt said.

"But I hate being the mediator." I said.

"You need to get your mind off of this stuff." He said making me look at him.

"And how can I do that?" I asked.

He gave me a smile.

"Tomorrow my band is practising for a show. Why don't you come by to check it out?" he offered kindly.

"It sounds like fun." Demiveemon cheered as he bumped on my lap.

"You really don't mind?" I asked feeling a bit insecure about going over to watch him perform.

I didn't even know he had a band in the first place.

A huge part of me is praying he isn't the pretty boy type with a terrible voice and sucky taste in music.

"I insist. You need to have some fun after everything you've been through this year." He said standing up and offered his hand to me.

Biting my lip, I nodded and accepted his hand.

**(The next day…)**

Matt had given me directions to get to the warehouse he and his band mates practised and performed in and Demiveemon was hiding in my bag along with my D-terminal and D-3.

Kari had said she was fine with me taking this day off and that they would call if there was any trouble and needed my help for it.

I looked at it as I heard voices inside and walked into the warehouse seeing three other teenagers with Matt, one boy having brown hair with blue eyes, another having sandy hair, green eyes and glasses while the last had black hair and brown eyes.

Matt noticed that I had come and smiled as he ended the conversation with his friends.

He ran up to me as the other guys looked at him curiously.

"Did you find the place OK?" he asked.

"Yeah." I said with a nod and small blush.

He smiled and gently took my hand, pulling me over to meet his band mates.

"So who's the cutie?" the brunette asked.

"Guys, this is Daisuke Motomiya. Dai, these guys are Renji Fujiwara." Matt said.

The black haired boy and a crooked grin and nod of his head.

"Kane Urameshi."

He was the one with the sandy hair who gave a wave at me.

"And finally, Aaron Kiyone."

As I looked at the brunette, I grew curious of the name.

"Kiyone? As in Rei Kiyone?" I asked thinking back to one of my boys from the soccer team.

Aaron looked surprised at that.

"You know my brother?" he asked.

"Yeah, we're on the same soccer team." I said.

"Oh, so you're that Daisuke. Yeah, he and his other friends hardly shut up about you. They talk about ya as I you're a goddess or something." Aaron joked making my cheeks heat up while Renji snickered and Kane rolled his eyes.

Matt seemed to have tensed up at that, but still had a smile on his face.

"Anyway, Dai's here because I invited her to watch us rehearse." He said.

"Great, she can tell us if we suck." Kane said.

"Well, I am a very harsh critic when it comes to my taste in music. If you guys are terrible, I won't hesitate to tell you." I said.

"Oh, yeah. I like her." Renji chuckled as the boys all went to gather up their instruments.

I went to sit down on one of the crates that was in the room while Kane stood behind a keyboard, Matt picked up a guitar and stood behind a microphone, Aaron picked up a base and Renji sat down at his drum set.

The music started up as I sat there listening, Matt looking over at me as he opened his mouth to start singing.

"_Monday, I wait outside your door_

_Tuesday I sing you this song_

_Wednesday I bring you a red, red rose_

_Take you to your favorite spot_

_7 days a week, every hour of the month_

_Gotta let you know where my heart is coming from_

_Gotta find a way just to make you stay_

_Gotta find a way just to let you know_

_I will try everything to make you come closer to me_

_Baby till you believe it's not just a phase_

_How can I get it through you're the one I can't lose?_

_I'll try 365 days, 365 ways to get to you." _The child of Friendship sang.

His azure eyes were staring right into mine as he sang and his voice was so…wow.

It was a wonderful sound and there was so much sincerity and passion in it as he sang this song, which was also pretty good too.

"_To get to you_

_You say you got me all figured out_

_Think you can read my mind_

_Think I'm the type to play around, but baby, you'll see in time_

_7 days a week, every hour of the month_

_Girl, you're the only one that I really want_

_I gotta find a way just to make you say_

_Gotta find a way just to let you know_

_I will try everything to make you come closer to me_

_Baby, till you believe it's not just a phase_

_How can I get it through that I'm the one you can't lose?_

_I'll try 365 days, 365 ways to get to you_

_To get to you_

_To get to you_

_To get to you_

_Every second, every tick, tick of the clock_

_I want you all to myself_

_I want you all to myself_

_Every single second until my heart stops_

_I swear there ain't nobody else_

_Every second, every tick, tick of the clock_

_I want you all to myself_

_Every single second until my heart stops_

_I swear there ain't nobody else_

_Oh ooooh_

_Yeah, oh_

_I will try everything to make you come closer to me_

_Baby till you believe it's not just a phase_

_It's not a phase_

_How can I get it through that I'm the one you can't lose?_

_I'll try 365 days, 365 ways to get to you_

_To get to you_

_Oh, oh, oooh_

_To get to you_

_To get to you_

_Yeah, yeeeaaah_

_To get to you_

_To get to you_

_Oh, 365 days_

_Oh, 3-365, yeah_

_To get to you_

_To you, babe."_

After they were done, the four boys all looked down to me to see how I would react to the song they had just performed.

Smiling, I clapped for them.

"I have to admit, I was impressed." I said.

The boys all laughed at that just as my D-terminal started beeping.

A bad feeling weighed down in my stomach as I pulled it out of my bag, Demiveemon looking just as worried as I felt as I pulled the device out to check the message.

"_What's up?" Matt asked as he came over._

_Flipping the top open, I read the message._

"_That weird woman Palmon told us about is here and used a whole bunch of control spires to make an Ultimate level digimon. _

_Get to the Digital World now to help the others._

_-Izzy."_

Matt read what it said and he nodded at me to go.

"Hey, what's the drama?" Aaron asked.

"Gotta get home. Sorry, guys." I said waving to them with a smile before I walked out of the warehouse calmly.

As soon as I was outside, I sprinted as fast as I could back to the school.

"_Can you get a hold of Ken and tell him to meet us and help us out?_

_-Daisuke."_

I sent then message to the redhead as I continued running, watching where I was going as I did so.

"_On it._

_-Izzy."_

About 20 minutes later I made it to the computer lab where Izzy was and he sent me through to the area that the others were in where the base of the DIgimon Emperor was exploding.

We needed Ken's and my Crest to stop the explosion, so I ran off.

ExVeemon flew off into the sky and we made it there in record time to see that a woman dressed in red with long blue hair, purple lipstick and purple sunglasses was standing in the middle of the storm as Okuwamon flew around to attack.

Ken was also there with Stingmon, thank goodness.

"Guys, up here!" I called as my dragon swooped down and dropped me off next to Ken.

"You're late." Yolei scolded.

"Lay off." I shot back at her with a look that shut her up.

"Thanks for coming to help out." I said to Ken.

"Well, this is my mess, so I need to end it." he said.

"Hey, unless you skipped the memo, it's gonna take both our Crests to stop the explosion. We need to work together." I said.

Our two digimon were working together to keep Okuwamon busy while we talked.

"This is my responsibility. I don't want anyone else to get hurt because of me." Ken said with a frown.

"I can take this from here." Stingmon said.

Okuwamon was about to hit him, but ExVeemon swooped down to kick the hand away.

"Are you nuts? He's an Ultimate." My dragon yelled.

"So? I'll do this alone." The insect said.

"What are you trying to do, get yourself killed? That won't fix anything." I scolded Ken as his fists clenched.

"It's my base and my Crest and my fault. No one else is going to die for my mistakes, understand?" he asked.

"I understand that you've lost your mind." I said.

"Have you forgotten? I was the Digimon Emperor, I was a monster!" Ken said as he shook with tears in his eyes.

"And I am as guilty as Ken. I didn't stop him." Stingmon said sadly.

"How is that your fault?" ExVeemon asked.

"I want to restore the Digital World with my own hands, but things just keep getting worse and worse…I can't stand it!" Ken said as he had this look of absolute guilt and self-hatred on his face that broke my heart.

"I don't want any more destruction in this world." He said.

"You…" I trailed off as I tried to think of what to tell him.

Right now I could see his entire soul and heart right there in front of me and he was being truthful in what he was saying.

But how far would he go to save this world and atone for the things he's done?

The answer to that is truly what worries me.

"It doesn't matter what happens to me!" Ken exclaimed.

"You idiot!" I yelled.

My hand then moved on its own as I slapped him for the second time across his face, snapping him out of his suicidal ranting.

His eyes were wide in shock as his cheek was bright red.

"How can you say that?! Think of who would be sad if you were gone." I said with as much force as I could as he looked at me.

"If I let you go and you never come back, I'll regret it forever. So I'll never let you go! You might be OK with it, but I'm not." I said.

Ken stared at me in wonder as he took in these words.

"Daisuke…" he whispered.

"LIVE!" I yelled making sure the words got through to him.

He flinched back at this.

"She's right. How else can you make up for the things you've done if you're not here anymore?" ExVeemon asked as he faced Stingmon.

The insect seemed to be thinking these words over.

"You're right. I guess we weren't thinking." He said.

"Ken, you aren't alone. You have me right here willing to help you out." I said taking his hands.

The Crest of Kindness he wore around his neck and the Crest of Miracles I wore around my neck both started to glow a bit from the contact of our hands.

"But why would you do that?" he asked as tears started falling.

"Why would you stand here and be so willing to trust me after everything I've done?" he sobbed.

Smiling softly at him, I let go of one of his hands and whipped away a crystal tear from his face making him look at me.

"Because, Ken…I'm your friend." I said.

He gasped at that as his eyes widened in shock and hope at the words.

Just then, our hands started to tingle as our D-3s started to glow a pretty teal light that also reached ExVeemon and Stingmon.

Then the sound of two nice, rhythmic beats like a drum was heard.

They were beating in tune with each other as if they were one.

It was then that I realized that it was my and Ken's hearts.

"That sound…it's your heart." He said with a hand over his chest.

"And yours. I can hear and feel it." I said.

The teal light around our digimon grew bright, making us look up to them as they started to transform and fuse together.

"ExVeemon…Stingmon…DNA digivolve to…PAILDRAMON!"

To be continued…


	26. Fusion Confusion

"Fusion Confusion"

**Here is the next chapter. Please enjoy and review!**

We all stared up at the new Ultimate digimon in awe, unable to process the fact that Stingmon and ExVeemon has fused together to create this new create.

"Take your best shot." The digimon said as he glowed in an amethyst light.

"Paildramon?" Ken and I asked.

"That's us." He said in both of our digimon's voices.

"They became one." TK said in awe as he held Patamon, Kari on the ground holding Gatomon beside him.

"How can he possibly win?" Yolei asked from her place on the ground as she held Hawkmon as Cody was beside her holding Armadillomon.

"You just watch me, Yolei." Paildramon said as the lights died down.

Okuwamon then gave a roar as Paildramon got ready for battle.

Paildramon delivered a roundhouse kick, sending Okuwamon down into the sand of the desert.

Wow, he/they/whatever is really strong.

"Ready for round 2?" he asked.

Okuwamon snarled in annoyance as he charged at Paildramon, but he caught the bug by his pincers, then threw him away.

Then Paildramon shot out his cables at Okuwamon and tied them around his ankles.

"You're grounded!" Paildramon said as he threw him to the ground.

"He fights something fierce." Armadillomon said.

"Yes, he's most certainly beating the tar out of that Okuwamon chap." Hawkmon said.

"Yeah, but does he have to make it look so easy? It makes the rest of us look like weaklings." Patamon said.

"He's tearing up Okuwamon like he was a scratching post." Gatomon said.

"But I don't understand why he had to merge with Ken's digimon." Cody said.

Oh, get over it please.

Okuwamon went off to get Paildramon again, but missed as the dragon/insect gave him a kick in the back and sent the silver bug into the sand dunes.

"Going down?" Paildramon teased.

"Wow, our digimon really is powerful." I said.

"Our digimon? I don't know if I like this idea of a shared digimon." Ken said as we watched our digimon punch Okuwamon in the jaw.

"I'm not so sure how I feel about it either, but it's not like we can do anything to change what happened." I said.

"Quick, use the Crests of Kindness and Miracles!" Paildramon said as he looked over to us.

"The what?" we asked then looked at each other as we remembered why we were there.

The excitement must have made us forget.

"Oh yeah." We said as we ran off to the fallen base.

"Don't forget about us." TK called.

"Yeah, wait up." Kari called as the others all ran after us.

"There it is, the entrance to the cave." Ken said as we spotted the large cracked opening.

The two of us went inside and started to make our way down all of the rubble that was inside just as the others all caught up to us.

"There's no way they'll get through all of this rubble." TK said.

Just as he said that, Ken and I both made our way down and ran over to the hallway that led to the power room, our moves in sync with each other as we went.

Might want to rethink that, blondie.

Ken soon took the lead as we went and we stopped at this green thing that was in a room.

"There it is. Now we need to get the Crest of Kindness up there." Ken said.

"But what about my Crest? Where does it go?" I asked not seeing my mark anywhere in the room.

"I'm not sure. Maybe you were meant to keep it." Ken said as he walked over to start climbing.

"Be careful." I said as I stood at the base of the large device in case he lost his footing.

He inserted the Crest under the symbol as the eerie green glow of the contraption faded away and the quaking seemed to die down.

"Look at that. The power is shutting down. The reactor's going off line. It won't explode now." Ken said as he started climbing down.

"That's a relief." I smiled just as the others all showed up in the room.

"Nicely done." Cody said.

"Excellent." TK said.

"Yay!" Yolei cheered.

"You guys did it." Kari smiled.

"Hey, it's a message from Izzy." Cody said as he pulled out his beeping D-terminal.

"What's it say?" Kari asked.

"The warp's back to normal." The boy smiled.

"All right, score one for the good guys." Yolei cheered as she pumped her fists in victory.

"That's all we get? All that work and we get only one point? TK!" Patamon whined.

"You get 2." The blonde smiled.

"It's all thanks to your Crest." I said to Ken as he walked over to me.

"Yeah." He said softly with a nod.

Just then, there was another blast that shook the base and startled us all.

Now what?

"What's going on?" Kari asked.

"For some reason, shutting down the reactor isn't turning off the explosions." Cody said as we all started running for cover.

"Ugh, my hat's great in the rain, but it doesn't work on concrete." Yolei groaned as she ducked down for cover.

"Izzy says…the warp is getting worse, not better. The Crest didn't work!" Cody announced after he checked his message.

"How can that be?" I asked.

"I knew something like this would happen. My Crest is meaningless." Ken said with his head bent.

I placed my hand on his shoulder to provide comfort.

"No, the Crest of Kindness should have stopped the explosion. There must be something else about this place that we don't know. Is there something you're not telling us, Ken?" Cody asked.

"There's something wrong here and if there was anyone who would know what it was, that person would have to be you." He said.

"Cody, calm down. Throwing the blame around isn't helping us at all." I scolded.

The base gave off another blast and I felt this sick feeling creeping up inside of me, that familiar horror calling to me, but I blocked it out.

"That woman's behind all this trouble." Kari said.

"Yeah, knock it off. You're a real bad egg, lady." Yolei called.

"And soon you will all be scrambled." The woman said.

Her image was on an old TV monitor that was on top of a pile of rubble.

"You don't scare us. We'll beat you yet." Kari said.

"Ha. You don't even seem to know if you're fighting the right enemy or if your friends are really your friends." The woman said with a smirk.

"You're a pathetic coward! You hide behind your evil creations and let them do all of the work. Why? Because you're too weak to do it yourself?" I yelled as I felt my anger rise from the pain and sickness I was feeling from the feeling of the Darkness.

It was in this room or at least somewhere in this base.

No one else seemed to be able to sense it like I could though.

"Aw, what a sweet thing you are. But it doesn't matter if I fight or not, because I will win and end you all." The woman laughed as the screen went black.

"I swear, I hate that woman." I muttered.

"You're not the only one." Ken muttered with a frown on his face.

He then seemed to notice something on the ground and was looking them over to where what he was looking at led.

"We've got to follow these pipes." He said as he ran off.

I didn't think twice about this as I followed him, but the sickness was rising.

The pipes were leading us to the Darkness, the main source of the trouble that was making the base give off these warps that could destroy the area.

"These pipes send energy to the reactor above. Following them will lead us right to the source of its power." Ken explained as we were now in a narrow hallway that looked a lot like what the inside of an arm would, but maybe it was just my opinion.

It was all a reddish orange color with these vein like bulges on the wall.

"If we plug that source we should be able to stop the reactor from exploding." Ken said.

The sickness was rising even more as we went, my head pudding painfully as I clung to the walls to stay up properly.

"Daisuke, what's wrong?" Gatomon asked making everyone look at me.

"You don't look too good." Patamon said.

"There's…something down here is making me sick." I stuttered as TK came to my side to help me walk.

"Then let's hurry and shut it down." Hawkmon said.

Everyone continued, Ken throwing a worried look over to me a few times as I stumbled a bit as TK helped me walk.

"These tunnels give me the creeps." Gatomon said.

"You know, this reminds me of something." Patamon said.

"What,s that?" TK asked as there was a flash of electricity at the end of the tunnel and a red light.

An explosion then went off making us all brace ourselves as the end collapsed.

"The tunnel's blocked. What're we gonna do?" Kari asked.

"Don't worry. Just leave it to old Armadillomon. Diamond Shell!" he said as he turned into a ball and rammed into the rubble.

Hawkmon also used Feather Strike and the path was cleared for us.

"Now we may continue." He said as his feather came back to him.

What a team.

"There it is. The source of the reactor's power." Ken said as we saw some sort of tower like thing at the end.

It was glowing with a dark blue mist that had the sickness rolling off of it and made the pounding in my head grow even fiercer.

"It's so cold." Yolei shivered as we got closer.

We all lost our colors just like when I was in the Dark Ocean, the tall thing that had the dark energy looked like a shriveled up tree that had the life sucked out of it.

"This feeling…" TK said.

"I remember. This feels just like when we were near that portal." Patamon said.

"Yeah, I remember now. You're right, Patamon, it is the same disturbing feeling." TK said.

"I've felt it too when Dai was acting strange in class that day she disappeared." Kari said.

"It's the Dark Ocean. I've felt it when I was pulled into that horrible world and when the portal opened and I was across the ocean from you all when you first saw Kimeramon. Being near it makes me sick." I whimpered as I held back the bile.

"The world of Darkness. This is the door that leads directly to the world of Darkness." Ken explained.

"How do you know?" Yolei asked.

"Because I've been surrounded by this ever since I came to the Digital World." Ken said.

"I can feel that thing's power building. We better do something quick." Kari said as a black smog appeared above the tree thing.

"Yeah, but what?" Yolei asked.

There was another explosion that made the place quake as we all tried to steady ourselves.

"Come on." Ken said as he slid down the side of the staircase and we followed.

"Look, up there. We've got to close the opening the dark power is coming through." Cody said.

"So what do you think we should do, Ken?" I asked as I limped over to him.

"I don't really know, but we've got to stop that power flow. There must be something around here that we can use to stop it." he said as there was another explosion that was near him.

The base shook so bad that we all were sent flying around the room we were in.

"Is…is everyone OK?" I panted as my vision started to blur.

"I'm all right, but my pride is bruised. But look!" Yolei yelled.

"The power outlet is increasing." Cody said.

"This looks like the end." TK said as the tree seemed to be sending out black smog as a white liquid fell out onto the ground.

Could that be the power of Light being drained away by the Darkness?

This can't be the end.

There has to be a way to change things around to make sure we win.

I won't let the Darkness win.

My Crest then started glowing and the gold light filled the entire room, returning color to everyone just as Paildramon burst into the room.  
"Somebody call for a hero?" he asked.

I stood up smiling as my vision returned to normal and the sickness faded away.

He used his Desperado Blasters on the tree and it was destroyed.

"Do I know how to make an entrance or what?" he asked turning back to us.

"Paildramon!" Ken and I cried out happily.

My Crest stopped glowing as everything was normal in the room.

"Izzy says the warp is returning to normal and it's all thanks to Paildramon." Cody said as he checked his D-terminal.

"This was just the battle; the war is far from over." Paildramon said.

Very wise and true words.

We all ran out of the base as Paildramon used his Desperado Blaster to destroy the base once and for all.

The wind caused by the blast came over to us as we stood about 100 feet away from it and blew our hair back.

"Yes, blow it up so no one can ever use it again." Ken said.

"Hey, we're over here!" a small green creature called as he hopped over with Chibomon.

"Did we do things the way you wanted us too?" the little green digimon with a pink pacifier in his mouth and leaf on his head asked.

"Yes, you did an excellent job, my friend." Ken smiled down at him.

"Chibomon, you were amazing." I said my little blue guy came over and he chuckled with a blush.

"We make a great team, huh?" he asked the other digimon as they both rubbed their heads together in a sort of hug.

They were just too CUUUUTTTTE!

"We make a good team too, right?" I asked as I smiled at Ken.

He looked at me as I held out my hand to him and he raised his hand.

His hand paused in the air as it closed in a fist and he pulled it away.

"What is it?" I asked as he frowned.

"I just don't feel like I deserve to be friends with any of you at all." He said.

"Really, you need to stop feeling that way. You've done enough. I already told you that I'm your friend and you can't change my mind." I said.

"I have?" he asked in surprise.

"Of course. You started out like a total jerk, but you were under the influence of the Darkness. You changed back to who you truly are, which is a kind and honest person. Trust me, you're worthy of friendship." I said with a smile and hand over my heart.

Ken turned away.

"I don't know. I've done a lot of bad things that I'm not proud of at all." He said with a sad look.

"Hey now, we're all made mistakes. Even I've made them and so have the others. No one is perfect. The word is a complete and total lie." I said.

"I don't know. I need some time to think about this." Ken said as he picked up his partner and then started walking off.

"Bye." The little guy called.

"I just wish he'd stop being so hard on himself." I said as we all watched him go.

**(Later in the Human World…)**

When we got back in the computer room, Matt and Izzy were there waiting on us.

"Are you guys OK?" the child of Friendship asked.

"Yeah, we're fine." TK said.

Matt looked over to me and walked over as he saw Chibomon was in my arms.

"So…DNA digivolving, huh?" he asked as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Yep, it was really cool." My little guy said.

"Everyone, I want you all to come to my house tomorrow for a meeting." Izzy said making us look at him.

"Why, Izzy?" Cody asked.

"To learn about DNA digivolving. Now, it's been a long day, so go home and get some rest." The redhead said.

We all nodded and split up to go to our own homes, Matt walking Kari and I home as Izzy went with TK, Yolei and Cody.

Matt asked what had happened and so we filled him in as we went.

"The Darkness?" he asked with a shocked look.

I nodded to him.

We had left Kari and Gatomon as she went inside her apartment and he was walking me to my floor.

"It was so much worse from last time. I don't know why it keeps coming after me." I said.

He kept quiet for a bit until he took my arm and made me stop walking.

"Do you kind if I come in to talk? I have something I need to tell you." He said.

I nodded as I felt my curiosity rising in what he could want.

When we got to my door, I unlocked it and let myself in.

"Jun, are you here?" I called.

There was no answer meaning she was out, so I let Chibomon down as he hopped over to the couch to sit there.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" I asked as I turned to fridge to take out the food to start cooking it.

The sound of the chair being pulled out made me know that Matt was sitting at the table.

"When I was first in the Digital World, Gabumon and I were in this cave all alone. I had separated from the others because I was trying to find myself, just like I'm sure Ken is trying to do now." He said as I washed my hands.

"I thought that TK needed me to be at his side all of the time, but I was wrong and…it felt like my world was crashing down around me. I thought that protecting my little brother was my one perpuss in life. He didn't need me in his life anymore and Tai was better at acting like a big brother than I was. I was just letting my depression swallow me up. It was the Darkness." He said.

I gasped in shock at that.

"You were almost taken by the Darkness too?" Chibomon asked as I turned to see Matt pick up my digimon and set him on the table.

"Yeah. I thought I was a terrible person and then the Darkness started coming after me and I was just letting it do that. I was drowning. Gabumon was there for me and he snapped me out of it." Matt said as I started cooking the steaks and rice.

"I never let anyone get close to me before, not since my family split up. Ever since then, I've been alone. I figured that if my family didn't want me, then I would just keep to myself and never tell anyone what I was feeling and never let them see me cry, when really all I wanted to do was cry. Gabumon was there for me the entire time and he helped me turn away from the Darkness and go after my friends to help them." He said.

I was quiet the entire time he was speaking because I realized that half of what he said was what I had felt before.

It's weird.

We're both so alike that it's scary.

Maybe Matt should be the one to talk to Ken and help him out.

"Why did you tell me this?" I asked.

The sound of the chair being pulled back made me know that Matt had stood up and he was soon standing behind me.

"TK told me what happened before. After you and Raidrmaon freed Agumon, he told me what you told him when you went to rescue Kari." He said as his arms went around my shoulders and he held me to his chest as his head rested on top of mine.

My face was burning in a blush at the contact as we stood there, but I was trying to focus on the food so it didn't burn.

My heart was beating so loud and hard in my chest I was afraid he heard it or it would jump out soon from the pace it was going.

"Dai, I really do care about you…more than I think you realize." He said making me gasp softly.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see that his cheeks were tinted red and his grip around me tightened in a comforting way.

"I-I really care about you too, Matt." I said softly, afraid my voice would crack.

He gave a small relieved chuckle as he kissed the side of my head.

"You know that song I played you today? It was for you. I was going to tell you earlier, but then you had to run off to save the day." He said.

"S-Sorry about that." I said with a small smile as I turned the stove off after the food was done.

"It's fine; at least I was able to tell you now. I really want you to be my girlfriend, so…will you?" he asked.

I reached up and held onto his arms that were around my neck.

"Oh, just say yes already!" a shrill voice said making us jump and turn around quickly.

Jun was there with my smiling mother as my father was banging his head into the door as a wave of despair rolled off of him.

"How long have you guys been there?" I asked mortified.

"When your friend here told you he cared about you. It was really very sweet." My mother said as Jun had stars in her eyes.

"Um, sorry for the intrusion, Mrs. Motomiya. Mr. Motomiya." Matt said bashfully as he pulled away from me.

"Oh, please. Call me Kaoru. And this is my husband Tohru." Mom said as Dad pulled away from the door.

He wasn't glaring at Matt or anything like most dads would, but he did look miserable.

"Hey." Dad greeted.

"It's nice to meet you both. Anyway, I should get going." Matt said as he started walking to the door and I followed him.

Jun giggled as she went over to the food while Dad went to his room to go sulk and Mom went to go console him.

"Sorry about that. I wasn't expecting your family to come in and make things awkward." Matt said as he put his shoes back on.

"It's fine. Just be happy my sister won't be stalking you anymore." I said.

"Didn't you say she would give up if I had a girlfriend?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm." I nodded with a smile.

Before he could say anything, I leaned in and kissed his cheek as he was out the door.

His face was red as I pulled away as was mine.

"My answer is yes. See ya around." I said as I closed the door.

I leaned against the door for a few seconds to wait for my face to cool down.

"YES!" I heard someone shout from the other side of the door.

Guess I'm not the only one excited.

Hard to believe I actually have a boyfriend now.

To be continued…


	27. First date

"First Date"

After our meeting with Izzy as he told us about the time MetalGarurumon and WarGreymon first fused together to become Omnimon to defeat Diaboramon, we all started walking off to the park where we found Matt, Tai and Sora.

"Hey everyone." Sora greeted with a smile.

"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" TK asked.

"Matt said he had something important to tell us." Tai said.

Everyone was curious about this, but when Matt looked over at me, my cheeks heated up as I figured out what it was he was going to say.

Kari and TK were watching us closely as Matt walked over to me, the two looking almost giddy.

Did they know or suspect something?

"Actually, this has to do with Dai too." The tall blonde said as he placed an arm around my shoulders.

Demiveemon seemed to be giggling as my cheeks burned more.

"What? What is it?" Yolei asked.

"And how is this any important as us dealing with the new dangers in the Digital World?" Izzy asked.

Tai seemed to be glaring at Matt's arm that was around me.

"Well, as of yesterday…Dai and I now dating." The blonde said.

Everything was silent.

Then TK, Kari, Patamon and Gatomon started cheering as Yolei squealed and hugged Poromon tightly to her chest.

"Congratulations. That's great." Sora said with a smile.

"This is a surprise." Cody said.

"Not really." Upamon said.

Izzy seemed a little stunned about this while Tai's mouth was wide open and his eyes were bulged out wide as he was slumped over.

"That is so cute!" Yolei shrieked.

"I may actually be getting a sister in the future." TK said making me turn to hide my face in Matt's chest as he laughed at what his brother said and rubbed my back.

"Hey, easy there, TK. We just got together." Matt said.

"But you two do seem to make the perfect couple." Patamon said as Gatomon nodded her head in agreement.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU TWO ARE GOING OUT?!" Tai suddenly shouted making us all jump and turn to him.

He looked furious.

"It's just like Matt said. We're dating now." I said.

"Why though? You're 13 for pity sake. He's 16. You're way too young." Tai pointed out.

"Tai, stop being so unreasonable." Kari scolded.

"It's Daisuke's life. She can live it the way she wants to." Sora said.

"Are we really getting into this?" Izzy asked as he looked down at Cody.

"I don't see what the point is. If Dai's happy, then so am I." Demiveemon chirped with a cute grin.

Tai whined as he turned to a tree and banged his head against it while the rest of us all sighed at that.

"Tai, really, stop worrying. Matt is your best friend. Don't you trust him to not hurt me?" I asked.

He turned back to look at me as his forehead seemed to have a small cut on it from the rough bark of the tree.

"No, I do trust him. It's just…I worry, OK. If it were Kari and TK who were dating, I'd be acting the exact same way. No offense, kid." He said to the child of Hope.

"None taken." TK smiled.

Sora sighed as she took a handkerchief out of her pocket and gently dabbed it at the cut on Tai's forehead and he took it from her with a quiet 'thank you'.

"Whatever. I'm happy for you both. Just don't break her heart, OK, Matt?" Tai said.

"I promise." Matt said.

"So what do we do now?" Yolei asked.

"I don't know about you guys, but we have a date." Matt said making me look up at him.

"We do?" I asked as his azure eyes sparkled in amusement.

"Yes we do. Come, let's go. See you guys later." He called to everyone as we turned to leave.

"Have fun." Kari called.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Tai called.

"Don't worry, I won't act like you." Matt said.

Demiveemon and I laughed as Tai started yelling profanities at the child of Friendship as the three of us walked off to the Ishida apartment.

Once we were inside, we took our shoes off and I set Demiveemon down so that he could go off to the TV and turned it on to see what was on to keep himself busy.

"So what did you have planned?" I asked as I sat down at the kitchen table with Matt.

"Nothing, I just wanted an excuse to spend some time alone with you before you have to go off saving the world again." He said.

"Really? Then what are we going to do now that we're here?" I asked.

Matt leaned back in his seat as he held his chin in thought, the sounds of an anime with fighting being the only sound in the apartment at the moment.

"It's almost lunch. We could cook something and just spend the day together. We'll figure out something to do later on." He suggested.

"Works for me." I said.

The two of us got to work gathering supplies and washed our hands before we started cooking something simple, like omelets that had ham, cheese and peppers in them.

After the food was done, we sat down at the table and started eating as Demiveemon joined us as we also talked while we ate.

We didn't stick to one subject, we mostly switched to whatever was on our mind while we also talked about what we had done while in the Digital World.

He told me that on his first night in the Digital World he and the others were attacked by a Seadramon and he was being squeezed as he was caught in the sea dragon's tail, so Gabumon made his first digivolution into Garurumon to save him and won the fight.

I told him about how Veemon was able to digivolve into ExVeemon for the first time, then we both talked about how they were able to become WereGarurumon, MetalGarurumon, Omnimon, Magnamon and Paildramon.

When that was done, we both went out to get some fresh air and continue our day as Demiveemon rested on my shoulder as we went.

We got some strange looks with my little dragon, but we ignored them as I hung onto Matt's arm as we came up to a café and walked inside to see what they had.

The two of us sat down at one of the comfy booths, Demiveemon going into plushy mode as Matt and I both looked over the menus at the selection of sweets.

A teenage girl with caramel brown hair, bright blue eyes and snowy skin walked over to our table dressed in what looked like a maid outfit from Tokyo Mew Mew, only it was black like the other two girls working in the café were wearing.

"Hey you two, are you ready to order?" the girl asked.

"Yeah, I'm ready. What about you, Dai?" Matt asked as he set his menu down.

"Sure." I said.

The girl seemed to be busy staring at Matt and she had on a big, flirty smile.

"No way. You're Matt Ishida from the Teenage Wolves! I'm such a big fan." She gushed.

Oh no, she's a freaking fan brat.

Those girls are so annoying and they are portrayed even worse on TV.

"Do you recognize me from class? We have music and math together." She said as she leaned forward with her perky bust being exposed.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. You're um…Orihime, right?" Matt asked awkwardly as he leaned back.

"Yep, that's me. So anyway, I was wondering if you would like to maybe go out on a date." Orihime asked with a big smile as she got a little closer.

My teeth were grinding against each other as my right hand was closed in a tight fist as I glared at the little hussy.

I'm sitting right here.

The nerve she has to ignore me and flirt shamelessly with my boyfriend.

"No thanks." Matt said.

Orihime reeled back in shock.

"What?" she asked.

"I said 'no thank'. Besides, I already have a girlfriend who is way prettier than you." Matt said as he sent me a wink with a charming smile.

My face heated up at that as I gave him a smile.

"Ugh. Who?" Orihime asked.

"Who do you think?" Matt asked as he took my hand and kissed my knuckles.

Orihime looked at me in outrage as she looked close to boiling over as she saw me.

"She's just a kid!" she said.

"For your information, I'm 13 going on 14. Whom so ever we choose to date is our business and not yours. You're a complete stranger and a spoilt brat that needs to desperately get over herself. If this is a problem for you, then we can always just leave. Have a nice day." I said as I stood up carrying Demiveemon as I pulled Matt along with me.

Orihime was still staring after us as we left with wide eyes and her mouth dropped open.

As soon as we were outside of the café, Matt burst into laughter and Demiveemon giggled.

"Aw, man. That was priceless." Matt said.

"She had it coming. I don't like people who act like that and when it comes to fan girls, my patience is limited with them." I said with my arms crossed as my dragon was on my shoulder.

The blonde chuckled as he cupped my chin as he leaned down to me and placed his lips on mine, my cheeks burning even more.

This is my first kiss for pity sake, I have a right to be nervous about this and let's not forget that we're in public too.

I wasn't sure what to do, so I just puckered my lips up against his and we were like that for a few seconds before he pulled away.

"First kiss, huh?" he asked.

"Y-Yeah." I said softly as I looked down shyly.

"Hey, it's no reason to be embarrassed. After all, you're only 13 still. I didn't expect you to be experienced in kissing. I'm not either. You're actually the first girl I went out with and kissed, too." Matt said.

"You're not just saying that to make me feel better are you?" I asked looking back up into his azure eyes.

"Not at all. Not come on, let's get back to your apartment. Maybe we can find a DVD to watch." He suggested as he looped his arm with mine and started walking me back home.

"Oh, we can have popcorn too!" Demiveemon added in.

I gave short laugh at my dragon in amusement as he hopped from my shoulder to up on Matt's head.

When we got back to my apartment, my parents and sister were out, so I looked through the selections of the DVDs that I had while Matt started making the popcorn as I did so.

"Did you find something?" Matt called from the kitchen.

Sighing, I picked up the first case I looked at and opened it up to make sure the disk was inside.

"Yeah, I got something." I called as I walked out of my room holding the DVD.

Matt came over and took the case, checking it over.

"Rush Hour. I didn't think you liked these type of movies." He said.

"Why? What types did you think I would like?" I asked as we went to the living room so that I could turn on the TV and place the disk in the DVD player.

"I don't know. Maybe something like 'Twilight' or whatever." He said.

"No way. I hate vampires. If I ever do watch a movie or TV show that has vampires in it, it's when they are being killed or getting their butts kicked." I said as I took the DVD from him and set it in the machine and hit 'play'.

"So…I take it you're a 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' fan?" he asked.

"Well, I did make an acceptation for that." I said as the microwave started beeping and the scent of freshly popped popcorn filled the air.

"Why do you hate vampires anyway?" Matt asked.

I kept quiet as I found a bowel that was big enough to fill and then set about dumping the hot popcorn in it.

"Dai?" he asked.

"When I was a kid my family was kidnapped by the Bakemon and Phantomon. I was right there in front of Myotismon as he was looking each of us kids over to find the 8th child. I even saw him when he turned into that beast. Ever since then, I've hated vampires. Funny thing is on Halloween, this guy dressed up as the clichéd vampire with the plastic fangs, white face and cape tried to scare me, but I wound up hitting him in the face with my backpack. The guys on my soccer team know better than to ever dress up as vampires for Halloween and the other guys in the school say 'Twilight' has ruined them, so they don't dress as them. They chose different monsters, now along with their favorite TV characters." I explained.

It was quiet for a while, but then Matt came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders and placed a kiss on the side of my head.

"I didn't know. Sorry about that." He said.

"It's fine. Besides, Myotismon is gone now thanks to you guys. There's no need to think about him anymore." I said with smile.

"Can you guys hurry up? It's starting!" Demiveemon called from the couch.

We laughed as we walked over to the couch and sat down cuddled up together as we watched the movie, Demiveemon eating most of the popcorn and laughing, my parents and sister coming home during the end of the movie and greeting Matt before they went off to do their own things while Dad was still sulking.

After that we watched the 'Back to the Future' trilogy that was playing on TV until it was late and Matt left for home and he called out goodbyes to my family before he gave me a kiss on the cheek and then left for home.

I have to say that for my first date, I really enjoyed it.

It was and simple and it was also kind of fun without any pressure at all.

It's good that I had this day to myself and my boyfriend because tomorrow the others and I will have to go to the Digital World to go solve the mystery of that strange woman and find a way to end her once and for all and take down the rest of the control spires.

To be continued…


	28. The Insect Master's Trap

"The Insect Master's Trap"

**Here is the next chapter. Sorry for the long wait. Please enjoy and review!**

We were in the Digital World, all of our digimon destroying the control spires around us.

"Great shot." I called to ExVeemon as he destroyed one.

Next it was Aquilamon that used his Grand Horn, the Ankylomon used his Tail Hammer.

TK and Kari were cheering and clapping as Pegasusmon and Nefertimon worked together to take out two with their Golden Noose.

Yolei and Cody laughed as they came over to me, then we all went back to the school after our hard work for the day.

"Junk food straight from the vending machine. Candy bars, potato chips and cheese crackers. Bon apatite." Cody said as he handed the snacks over to the digimon.

"Come on guys, take it easy. You'll get a stomach ache." He said as the digimon wolfed down the food, Yolei sitting at the computer to look some things over.

"Check this out." She said with a smile.

"What's up?" TK asked walking over.

"Another control spire just went down in the Digital World." She said.

"Looks like Ken is working over time." I stated with a proud smile.

"You never told us what it was like when you DNA digivolved with Wormmon." Upamon said as he hopped over to Demiveemon.

"It was weird. I felt like an action star in one of those big movies." My dragon said as he stood up.

"Kind of like when you first digivolved from Rookie to Champion digimon?" Poromon asked.

"No, bigger than that." Demiveemon said.

"The thing that would freak me out most though would be to have two minds in one body." Gatomon said.

"It's strange; it didn't feel like two minds in the same body. It's more like our minds merged into one super being." Demiveemon said thoughtfully.

"Sounds weird to me. You already have voices running around in your head." Patamon said.

"If I merged with you, I would be lost in there with the others." Gatomon said.

"I was wondering what it was like for Demiveemon. It was weird for me." I said.

"Well, you two are connected." TK said.

"Yeah. Are you telling me that you and Ken were somehow connected too?" Kari asked.

"Yeah. It was cool, but also weird. We could hear and feel each other's hearts beating as if they were the same." I said placing a hand over my left breast.

Memories of it came into my mind and it brought a smile to my face.

"So you two were actually synchronized then?" Yolei asked as she stood up.

"Didn't I just say that?" I asked.

"I'm telling you, just when we think we've got this whole digivolution thing figured out, something new pops up. But this is the craziest I've seen yet." Kari said as she then walked around the room.

"Just think; if all the digimon could digivolve together, just imagine all the weird and crazy combinations. Let's see. If ExVeemon and Angemon combine, they'd make one tough winged digimon that's for sure." Kari said as she thought it over.

"Or how about a Gatomon combo? I dare someone to try to put that cat out for the night. Or how about ExVeemon and Aquilamon or even ExVeemon and Ankylomon?" she asked as she got excited.

"We need to think this through a little more before we get ahead of ourselves. This might be dangerous." Cody said.

"Calm down. We'll figure this out." I said placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, TK, check out Demiveemon. I think he's learned a new battle cry." Kari said making us all look at my dragon.

He was stretching and moving around until he made a 'meep' sound which made the other digimon clap and laugh.

My sweet little boy, I love him to tears.

There was a knock at the door making us all turn to see Matt was standing there.

"Hey, long day?" he asked.

"We managed to smash the control spires in a desert area and Ken's taking care of another one." TK said as the older blonde walked over to my side and I instinctively took his hand.

"Why are you here?" Patamon asked.

"I think I should be allowed to come see my brother and girlfriend." Matt said slyly as he placed a kiss on my cheek which made me blush while Kari, TK, Gatomon, Patamon and Demiveemon giggled.

"Sounds good to me. Let's hurry up and get home." Kari said.

We all then gathered up our digimon while we all went home, Matt walking Kari and I back to our building where we spotted Tai and Sora holding hands as they talked in the park across from our building.

About time, dude!

(The next day…)

"We've got an e-mail from that weird woman." I said when my D-terminal beeped and I checked the new message.

"Dear Digidestinds, we need to talk about the debt you owe me for destroying my property. Meet me at the Giga House." I read.

"You know it's a trap. Why are we going?" Kari asked as she, TK and I started running to the lab.

We're gonna have to face her sooner or later, Kari. At least this way it won't be a big surprise." TK said.

"If you jinx us, I'm never cooking for you again." I said.

We turned the corner and then ran into the room to see Cody and Yolei in the room with the portal opened.

"OK, we're all set. Now we all agree if it's too dangerous, we just turn back?" Yolei asked.

"Let's go." I said.

"I have a bad feeling about this guys." She said.

Believe me, we all do, just get over it.

Everyone was then pulled through the portal and found ourselves in front of a huge house that made us all look like Barbie dolls.

"Now that's one big yellow house." Kari said.

"My question is who is the big person that lives in it?" Yolei asked.

"This is Giga House?" I asked.

"It's huge and spacious." Veemon said.

"It must be 200 feet tall. It's amazing." Amradillomon said.

"No kidding." Cody said.

"Could you imagine having to mow this lawn?" Kari asked.

"Or how about washing those windows? You'd need a helicopter to get up there." TK said.

"Why do you think Arukenimon invited us here? You think she's gonna attack us with a team of basketball players?" Yolei asked.

A what?

"I don't know, but keep your eyes open. We don't need anything sneaking up on us." I said.

"Hey guys!" someone called.

My point exactly.

Turning around, we saw that it was Wormmon who gave the greeting and Ken was there too.

"So you guys got the e-mail too?" he asked.

"Hey there boys." I smiled as I walked over to them.

Wormmon smiled as he jumped up into my arms while Veemon went up on Ken's back, the two digimon smiling at each other.

"You guys come for the house party?" Veemon asked.

"Some house part, Veemon. Looks like the hostess wants to make piñatas out of her guests. This is a set-up." Ken said.

"We figured that too, but I guess Miss Congeniality wants to eliminate all her enemies in one swoop." Kari said.

"That's why I think it's a bad idea for you guys to go in. You should just go home." Ken said.

"I understand that you're saying this out of concern for us, but we can handle ourselves." I said as I gently stroked Wormmon's antennas.

"Ken has a point." Yolei said making us look at her.

"We have to do something. We can't just sit here. This might be our last chance to stop her." She said.

"I've got an idea. How about a few of us go in to scope things out? This way, if it's a trap the rest of us can bust in and help." TK said as he walked over to Ken and I.

"Dai, since you and Ken are so fired up to go in there, why don't you guys go first?" he asked us.

"Mm-hmm." Kari and Yolei nodded.

"Count on me too." Cody jumped over to my side.

"Sounds like a plan. And now the teams are even." I said.

"Three isn't an even number." Yolei pointed out.

"I meant we have three people on each team." I sighed.

"We'll be right out here. If things get too crazy, just signal us and we'll come to the rescue, OK?" TK asked.

"I still think it's a better idea if I go in there alone guys." Ken said.

"That'll happen in about…never. Stop being so suicidal." I scolded.

"Let's go! Last one in is a rotten digi egg." Veemon laughed as Ken, Cody, me and our digimon all ran inside of the house.

"I'd hate to be a rotten digi egg." Wormmon commented.

"How in the world are we supposed to get in there anyway?" Ken asked as we stopped in front of the house.

"Maybe we can climb up to an open window." I suggested.

"Hey, lookie over here!" Armadillomon called.

There was a window on the side of the house that was open and it had a tree right next to it.

Thankfully it was a pine tree so we all climbed up it and crawled through the window, coming into a kitchen and we were near the sink on a counter.

"You think the woman will attack us with a super huge pizza? I just hope she doesn't use us as the toppings. I'm very allergic to anchovies." Veemon said.

"Is it just me or does this place remind you of that 'Gulliver's Travels' book with all of the huge? I never read it, but I've heard a few stuff." I said as we looked around.

"Actually, Gulliver was a normal sized man who found himself in a new land with very tiny people." Cody explained.

"Maybe 'Jack and the Beanstalk' would be more appropriate." I said.

"You guys are classic. Just like an old married couple." Ken said as he hopped off the window sill.

We all started running around to get a better look around here, but stopped when I heard some strange buzzing sound.

"Did you guys hear something?" I asked.

"Maybe it's your imagination." Cody said.

"No, I heard it too." Ken said.

"We're not alone here." Veemon said as he, Armadillomon and Wormmon all stood back to back.

"Sounds like clicking." Armadillomon said.

"It's coming from that vent over the stove." Wormmon said as we all looked over there.

Just then, a swarm of beetle looking digimon all flew down.

OK, if I found bugs in my kitchen, I would not be happy.

"It's an army of Goukimon. There's nothing like an infestation of killer bugs to ruin the charm of a sweet little cottage." Veemon said as more of those bugs started to crawl out of the sink.

Blue, yellow and purple lights shone around us as my, Cody's and Ken's digivices acted up.

"Veemon digivolve to…EXVEEMON!"

"Wormmon digivolve to…STINGMON!"

"Armadillomon digivolve to…ANKYLOMON!"

"I hate roaches." ExVeemon said as he started punching out the bugs while Stingmon and Ankylomon helped him out.

One tackled me down, but I kicked him off of me while Cody hit another one with a spoon he found that was his size.

"There's too many of them. Every time I knock one down, two more pop up in it's place." Ankylomon said.

"We need more fire power." ExVeemon said.

Looking down, I saw Ken was sitting on Stingmon's shoulder with a conflicted look on his face.

"Ken, we have no choice. We need to DNA digivolve." I told him.

"She's right, Ken. We're over matched here." Stingmon said.

"Ken, please. I need your help here." I said making him gasp and look over to me.

"No, wait." Cody said making me look over at him.

"There's something weird about those bugs. Take a look for yourself. Do you see any dark spirals or black gears on any of them?" he asked making me look around.

"Maybe she created them from scratch." Ken said.

"Or she has a crazy fan club." I said.

"It's time we realize we're out numbered." Cody said.

"Let's move boys." Anklymon said as he stomped on one of the bugs.

ExVeemon then picked Cody and I up in his hands.

"Let's get out of here." I called as my dragon jumped down; landing on some bugs and then took off.

"Right behind you." Stingmon said as he flew after us.

ExVeemon grabbed the faucet and started spraying the bugs.

"You guys stink. Take a shower." He said.

"Don't forget to wash behind you ears." He said as they all went down the drain.

"Those guys give me the willies." Ankylomon said.

"Nice work, ExVeemon." I praised my dragon.

"Something tells me we're not out of hot water yet guys." Stingmon said as more buzzing sounds were made.

Some strange yellow and purple caterpillar digimon then came down from the ceiling.

"This place is filthier than a truck stop motel." I said.

"Kunemon. These larva digimon have a shocking attack. The Electric Thread. They're small, but pack quite a wallop." Ankylomon said as Stingmon charged at them.

The Kunemon stopped him as they spat out electricity at them making my eyes widen in horror as I saw that Ken was still on Stingmon's back and was getting hit too.

"KEN!/STINGMON!" ExVeemon and I called.

The duo of Kindness were then thrown into the still running water, Stingmon shielding ken with his body.

"Armadillomon, we need to armour digivolve right now." Cody said.

"You got it Cody." Ankylomon said as he reverted back to normal.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve to…Submarimon: the Reliable Guardian of the Sea!"

Cody jumped into the submarine digimon's hatch and then drilled into the washing machine that that the duo of Kindness were thrown into.

We waited in anticipation until a few minutes later the two groups shot out of the machine and then went up into the vent.

"Follow them!" I called as ExVeemon grabbed my and flew up into the vent to see how the others were feeling.

Ken was choking out water from his lungs as I ran over and knelt at his side, patting his back to help him get it out.

I then helped him stand up after he felt better and he then walked over to Cody.

"Hey, Cody. I've got to thank you for saving me back there. For a second, I thought I was a goner." Ken smiled gratefully.

"It was pretty slick, Armadillomon." Stingmon complimented as the Rookie chuckled.

"That's cool, but I was just paying you back. You saved my life when we fought Thundermon, remember? I figured it was the least we could do to pay you back. So there." Cody said.

Seriously, just take the compliment.

When is he going to get over the things that the Emperor had done?

"Then we're even." Ken said.

"We should get out of here before those things find out where we went. We're sitting ducks here." He said turning to me and ExVeemon.

"I agree. We still have to find that woman." I said.

Armadillomon, Cody and I all got up onto ExVeemon's shoulders as Ken did the same to Stingmon as the two Champions ran off down the vents when a strange sound was heard.

"It sounds like someone's playing a flute." Ken said.

"It's coming from the room beyond that vent." He said as we spotted the opening up ahead of us.

"Dead end. The only way around it is through it. Stingmon, if you'd be so kind." He said.

"Gladly." He said as he burst through it.

"What a gentleman." ExVeemon said as he followed him.

"It's Arukenimon. She's the one playing the flute." I said as we spotted the woman standing on a wooden board in the ceiling playing the instrument.

"Well, let's shove that flute right up her nose." Ken said.

She then stopped playing to chuckle at us with a smug grin curving her purple lips.

"Sorry we didn't bring a house warming gift." I quipped.

"We're gonna end your reign of terror right here and now." Ken said.

"Such harsh words. Now where are your manners, young man? Can't you see there are ladies present? I guess I'll have to teach you some respect." Arukenimon laughed.

"I overestimated you kids. If I knew you'd walk willingly into a trap, I would have done this sooner." She continued to laugh.

"That's what you think. You're cornered." Ken said as he stepped up, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Oh, Ken. You're such a tough guy when you're in front of your little friends. Especially a certain young lady." She mocked.

"Come on, Daisuke, it's time to DNA digivolve." He said.

Well it's about time!

"You heard him, boys." I called over to our digimon.

"Consider it done." Stingmon said.

He then went to go after her, but Arukenimon started playing her flute and he grabbed his head in pain.

"This isn't good." I said.

Stingmon growled as his eyes flashed a bright red color before he rounded on ExVeemon and swung his arm at him.

"What in the world are you doing, Stingmon?" Ken asked in shock.

He seemed to be snapping out of his daze at the sound of Ken's voice, but when Arukenimon kept playing, Stingmon went back to attacking ExVeemon.

"The music from the flute. It can somehow control Stingmon." Cody said.

She stopped playing and smirked at him which made me grab him and pull him behind me.

"Smart boy. Any requests?" she asked.

"We have to get that flute away from her, Armadillomon." Cody said.

"It's time for Digmon." Armadillomon said.

Just then, all of those bug digimon started to make sense and my eyes widened in shock.

"NO!" I yelled, but was too late.

"DIGI ARMOUR ENERGIZE!"

"Armadillomon armour digivolve to…Digmon: the Drill of Knowledge!"

"I'll take care of this." He said.

Arukenimon then started to play her flute making him groan in pain.

"Digmon is an insect just all the other digimon that attacked us. He's under her control now too." I said.

Digmon then went to attack Cody, but Ken ran over to him and knocked him out of the way as Digmon stabbed his drill into the wall.

"You children disappoint me. Of course the miracle child can figure it out." Arukenimon said.

Stingmon then punched ExVeemon in the snout making me wince in sympathy for my dragon as Digmon came up to him with his drill spinning.

"Why don't you be a sport and take your lumps?" Arukenimon sneered.

What the heck does that even mean?

The two insects tackled ExVeemon all around the place making me gasp in horror as my heart pounded in worry for him.

"Hello boys and girl." Digmon said as he advanced on us.

"Digmon, don't do it!" Cody cried.

He then used his Rock Cracking attack making the boards under us break as we all fell down.

The three of us yelled as we fell down, expecting to hit the floor, but thankfully we landed on something soft.

Looking, I saw that we were caught in a web.

I take it back, this isn't good.

"Guys, I'm stuck." Ken called as he tried to get loose.

"Me too. It's some kind of web." Cody said.

"Yes. Pardon my rudeness, but there's a very good friend I'd like you to meet." Arukenimon said.

"Please don't tell me it's a giant poisonous spider that's gonna gobble us up." I said when there was a growling noise as the web moved.

"Sorry, Daisuke." Ken said.

"Meet Dokugumon and she's hungry." Arukenimon said as we saw the large spider coming over to us.

She played her flute again as Dokugumon seemed to be getting more wild as she crawled over to us as we all struggled to free ourselves from the web.

I am really starting to hate bugs.

To be continued…


	29. Arukenimon's Tangled Web

"Arukenimon's Tangled Web"

**Here is the next chapter. Please enjoy and review!**

"Does she know any other tunes?" I growled.

Arukenimon kept playing her flute as Dokugumon crawled closer to Cody, Ken and I as we were unable to get off of the webs that had us trapped and Digmon and Stingmon were still under Arukenimon's control as they fought ExVeemon.

Digmon, stop it! Don't you realize you're fighting your friends?" Cody called.

"Yeah, guys! Can't we all just get along?" ExVeemon said.

"Nice knowing you." Ken said as Dokugumon got closer.

"Come on, guys! Knock it off!" Cody yelled.

"Keep trying." Ken said.

Wait a minute…

I looked back over to Cody from where I could see him since my arms and head were stuck to the web just like Ken while our legs were free.

"Cody, are your hands free?" I asked.

"Um yeah. Why?" he asked.

"You can contact the others for help." Ken said catching on.

"Oh, but, uh…" Cody said nervously.

"Don't you dare freeze up on us. You can do it. Come on, we know you can." I said.

"I'm on it." he said.

He pulled out his D-Terminal and started typing away as the growling of the hungry spider got closer and the flute was getting on my nerves.

"She's busy with the bugs too." He said.

"Don't give up. Try Kari and TK." I said.

Cody nodded as he typed away, but frowned sadly.

"Um, I'm afraid they can't come either." He said then looked back at us.

"We're on our own." He said.

Sighing, I looked up to where my dragon was fighting the two insects.

"What do you say guys? How about a chocolate break? I can't stand it anymore! Doesn't she know another song?" ExVeemon asked.

"No one's available." Cody said.

"Then you help us." Ken said making him gasp.

Cody frowned as he looked around the area, trying to figure something out and then spotted a thermostat on the wall and right next to it was an air conditioner that had some webbing connected on it.

"A thermostat, hmm. Which means there must be an air conditioner nearby. That's it. We can blow Dokugumon off of the web. It's worth a try. What do you say?" Cody asked as Ken and I nodded.

Ken looked at some of the small pieces of debris on the web right next to his feet and he grinned.

"This might work." He said picking it up with his feet and looking over to me.

"It's just like playing soccer, Daisuke." He said.

"Pass it." I called.

With a grunt, he turned his body and tossed the piece of wood over to me and I kicked it, sending it over to the thermostat, hitting the button to turn it on as the air conditioner was turned on and started blowing cool air down on us.

It hit Dokugumon and made the web under her shake and it snapped as she fell down.

"Great play!" Cody smiled.

We all yelled as we came free of the web that had broken, me quickly grabbing onto the web when my arms were free while Ken grabbed onto the web and Cody's foot.

"I've got you, Cody!" he said.

"Are you sure you're not just pulling my leg?" Cody asked as the webs slowly lowered us to the bed that was under us.

Safely on the bed, I looked up to where ExVeemon was.

He was attacked by Digmon's Gold Rush, which he dodged while Stingmon hit him with his spiking strike and sent him falling down to the ground.

"I'm OK." He said as he landed on his feet, but then fell to his knees.

"Maybe." He whimpered.

He grabbed us and then flew off to where we would be safe and then he reverted back into Veemon.

"Don't worry, V, you did a great job holding them off." I said with a comforting smile as I picked him up and held him.

"This place is perfect." Ken said.

We were in front of a clothing dresser that would be easier for us to hide in.

Setting Veemon down, the boys and I grabbed onto the bottom of the drawer and started pulling it open, grunting at the effort.

"You've almost got it. Just a little more." Veemon encouraged.

When it was open, Ken then grabbed my hand and pulled me over to where a slipper was and we carried it over to the drawer to use it to climb inside.

"Whoo, I never realized the bigger the shoe, the bigger the stink." Veemon said.

"Let's close it up." Ken said after we all climbed inside.

"But how can we?" Cody asked.

Stingmon and Digmon then rammed into the drawer, slamming it closed on us as we all jumped back.

"That works." I shrugged.

"Yeah, but I sure hope it holds." Veemon said.

The sound of drilling then it us aware that Digmon was trying to get inside.

"I can't believe Digmon is trying to attack us." Cody said sadly.

"It's not his fault, it's that stupid flute." I said.

"She's right. We should be able to save ourselves and everyone else if we could stop the sound." Ken said.

He and Cody both frowned in thought as they tried to come up with a new idea on how to handle the situation.

"Hey, are you guys' familiar with the story of the Moth and the Bat?" Ken asked.

"Of course I remember. The moth heard the sound the bat made and used it to escape. It was a trick of some kind." Cody said.

"It was quite amazing. The moth was able to create it's own sound and mixed it with the sound of the bat. The bat became confused and lost its way, enabling the moth to escape unharmed." Ken said.

"So all we have to do is somehow change the frequencies of the flute so she loses control over Stingmon and Digmon." I said catching on.

"We need some more information. If we had a link of the flute's sound waves, we can determine her moves." Cody said.

"It's a solution, but there's no real way of carrying it out." Ken said.

All three of us sighed at that, me thinking on it.

"Wait! What if we get Yolei to record the sound of the flute and then alter the music that way?" I asked.

The two boys looked at me stunned.

"That could work, but how?" Cody asked.

"Wait, there's a computer in this house. She can use that to record the music." Ken said.

Cody nodded as he pulled out his D-Terminal and started typing away.

I then started typing to see how Kari and TK were.

Apparently, they were trapped by some insects in the office that had a computer where Yolei was heading.

TK sent a message back that said Yolei had made it, the Sniimon after them were taken out and now they were working on the computer.

"Great, they're working on it right now." I said.

"But there's one little problem." Ken said.

"What now?" I groaned.

"Well, it's a music software program. If she's not familiar with it, it'll be difficult to use. It's probably going to be impossible." He sighed.

"WHAT?!" Veemon yelped.

"Not really. She helps my boyfriend's band out with their music, so she's used to this type of stuff." I smiled.

Ken's eyes widened in shock at what I said then looked a bit upset.

"You…have a boyfriend?" he asked softly.

"Uh, yeah. Why?" I asked.

Veemon and Cody shared a look, then sighed as Ken shook his head to clear it of something and forced a grin.

"Nothing. Let's just focus on getting out of here." Ken said.

OK, what was up with that?

Yolei sent a message that said they were working on it and getting closer while Stingmon was helping Digmon get into the wood.

"Everyone back it up." I said pulling Ken and Cody with me to the very back of the drawer while Veemon clung to my leg.

"We can't wait. Go for it, Yolei." Cody said.

The holes were created open as the two insects crawled through making us all cry out as the boys held onto my arms while Veemon still held onto my leg.

Yolei, hurry it the heck up!

Just then, a different tune of the flute was played, meaning Yolei had managed to get it right.

Stingmon and Digmon stopped their attack and looked at us peacefully.

"Digmon!" Cody cried as he hugged one of the insect's drills.

"What's up, Cody?" he greeted.

"What're we doing in this drawer, playing hide and seek?" Stingmon asked.

Sighing in relief, we all walked out of the drawer.

"You mean you can't remember what happened to you?" I asked them.

"Um, Dai…" Veemon said grabbing at me hand and shook his head while I smiled at him.

"Never mind, at least things are back to normal." I said.

I then turned over to look up at the ceiling where Arukenimon was watching us all.

"It's time to face the music." I said.

She just laughed and then jumped down to stand in front of us.

"That's amazing. How could she jump down all that way without getting a single scratch?" Cody asked.

"Do you think she could be…?" Ken trailed off.

"A digimon? Duh." I said.

"So you caught on? Well, it's about time. I should have known the sweet child of Miracles would find it out. That's right boys, I'm not human. I'm…Arukenimon!" she said as she started to transform into an ugly spider creature.

"I'm an Ultimate digimon. 'Welcome to my parlor' said the spider to the flymon. It's so good to be back to my true form instead of trapped in that human body. I feel pretty again." She said.

"If you're trying to scare us, you failed miserably." I said.

"Well, I've done a terrible job as host. Allow me to make up for it by terrifying you!" she said.

She then aimed her spider thread at me, but my D-3 glowed.

"Veemon digivolve to…EXVEEMON!"

ExVeemon used his Critical Crunch and snapped the red thread with his fangs before it could hit me.

Arukenimon used the threads again; using six from her hands and sent the digimon flying off away from us and then ran after them, but was stopped by a pink beam of light.

The others had finally made it.

Pegasusmon attacked next with his Equis Beam, but she jumped up onto the wall and climbed up on it and then jumped off the ceiling to attack Kari and TK, but Shurimon jumped in and used his Double Star, making her jump away and cling back to the ceiling.

Nefertimon and Pegasusmon then flew after her after they set Kari and TK down, Arukenimon using her Acid Mist on the two Celestials, weakening them and then she used her Spider Thread, knocking them down to where ExVeemon, Digmon and Stingmon were standing.

"Why do I have a sudden urge to sit on a tuppet eating curds and weigh?" Stingmon asked.

"I've had it with spiders. Ready, Ken?" I asked.

"Right." He nodded.

Teal light then came from our D-3s as Stingmon and ExVeemon were hit by the light.

"ExVeemon…Stingmon…DNA digivolve to…PAILDRAMON!"

"You're wasting your time, boys. You're just crawling deeper into our web." Arukenimon said.

"What?" Paildramon asked.

He then charged at her, but she jumped over and kicked him down and she then chased after him.

Paildramon used his Sting Strike and hit her, sending her into a garbage can.

"Looks like she's back where she belongs." I smirked.

"Wait to go." Ken said.

Arukenimon then crawled out of the garbage and started running with a cackle while Paildramon chased after her.

She used her Spider Thread, but he used his Desperado Blaster sending her flying back into a wall.

"So what?" she sneered.

"Let's take her down now." Digmon said.

"We're ready." Nefertimon said.

"Let's trap her in the dining room. We need everybody's help. Dai, Ken, listen up. All right, here's the deal. We're going on ahead. I want you to try and lead Arukenimon into the dining room, OK?" Yolei asked.

"We'll make her go." Ken said.

"We got it covered." I said.

Paildramon then threw Arukenimon down into the ground and landed next to her.

"Give up?" he asked.

"Never!" she snarled as she went after him, but he dodged.

The others all left while Ken and I watched our digimon fight.

"Hey, boys! We got a plan!" I called waving my arms.

"Follow us, Paildramon!" Ken called waving his hand.

"I'm with you." Paildramon said.

He then picked us up and ran off, spotting Cody hiding around the corner of the door leading to the dining room and then he ran off as Paildramon went around the corner, Arukenimon following, then she stopped and gasped when she saw Yolei and Shurimon holding what looked like salt and pepper shakers in their arms.

"Surprised ya. How about a little salt bath?" Yolei said as they rained the contents down on her.

"Ever spider's favorite." Shurimon said as Arukenimon fell to the ground and then got back up to run off.

She was stopped by Digmon sitting on a can of big spray.

"Some Eau de Bug Spray, Madame?" he asked as he sprayed her with it and she shrieked before running off.

Next were TK and Kari on Pegasusmon and Nefertimon holding wires that were still plugged into the wall.

"How's her hair?" TK asked.

"It needs some work." Kari said.

They then jabbed her with the wires, electrocuting her.

"Now's your turn." I said.

"Get her, Paildramon." Ken said.

Paildramon flew up and rained down his Desperado Blasters on Arukenimon as soon as the duos of Light and Hope were safely away.

From everyone she went through, she fell down exhausted.

All of us then stood together, looking over at her as I stood in front of them all with Paildramon five feet in front of me.

"We want an explanation." I said.

"Yeah, did the Digidestinds ever do to you?" Yolei asked.

"And why do you want to destroy the Digital World?" TK asked.

"Tell us now." Ken demanded.

"Oh, give me a break. That's a ridiculous question." Arukenimon smirked.

"Why's that?" Paildramon asked.

"Why do I want to destroy it? Ha! It's what I live for, you miserable excuse for a digimon." She said.

"How come you've changed several control spires into digimon?" Kari asked.

"Please, that's enough with the preposterous questions. You didn't even have any idea what the control spires are for, so it would be a big waste of time trying to explain it to you." Arukenimon said.

"She's not talking. Any ideas? Doesn't look like she wants to apologize." Nefertimon said.

"You're right. If she gets away, she'll just continue to destroy the Digital World." Paildramon said.

"What should we do with her?" Cody asked.

"Let me take care if her. It's the very least I could do for you guys after all the damage that I've done." Ken said as TK came up to my side.

"There's no 'I' in team." He said.

"We should find a place that we can put her where it's secure and then make sure she's locked up tight so she can't escape." TK said.

"You fools!" Arukenimon yelled making us gasp.

"There isn't any place that's strong enough to hold me. See?" she asked as she rose up.

She then used her Spider Thread, but Paildramon used his claws to knock them away.

"Is that all you can do?" he questioned.

She gritted her teeth and growled in annoyance as she clenched her fists.

"Two words; anger management." Paildramon quipped.

"But if you're still looking for a fight, then bring it on." He said.

"Then what?" a male voice asked.

We all turned to see a man dressed in a tall blue hat and coat that reached the floor.

"You'll take on two Ultimates?" he asked.

"Who're you?" Paildramon asked.

"Just think of me as a well wrapped present." He said.

The man then turned into a mummy holding a large gun as we all exclaimed in surprise.

"Another digimon?" Ken asked.

"I thought we could spend some quality time together my dear." The mummy said to Arukenimon.

"Yes, Mummymon." She said.

"Mummymon?" I asked.

"Yes, and I'll let you in on a little secret I have under wraps. My Snake Bandage attack is ghostly." Mummymon said as he raised his gun.

He laughed as he blasted Paildramon with the electricity that fired off from it, sending him flying.

"He's such a mummy's boy." Shurimon said.

As the digimon were about to attack, Mummymon used his Snake Bandage, wrapping them up and making them fall to the ground tied up.

He then jumped over and landed next to Arukenimon.

"They're all tied up. Time to make our getaway. We don't want to desert them." He said.

Mummymon then grabbed Arukenimon and fled the scene.

Paildramon jumped over and reverted back into Leafmon and Chibomon while the others were back into Gatomon, Patamon, Hawkmon and Armadillomon.

"Great, who would've thought Arukenimon had a boyfriend to come to her rescue?" I asked.

"I'm wondering what they really want. They must have some reason or being so nasty and mean." Yolei said.

"I think they feel destroying everything is simply fun." Cody said.

"The thought of it makes me sick." Yolei said.

Cody seemed deep in thought, then gasped as he turned to Ken and walked over to him.

"Thanks. You helped me." he bowed.

"Huh?" Ken asked looking surprised.

"You saved my life and even though you were the mean Digimon Emperor, I still owe you one." Cody said.

I couldn't help but smile at the two of them, especially when Ken gave a cute smile.

"What're you talking about? Why, you don't owe me anything at all, Cody. You're air conditioner idea was genius." Ken complimented.

Leafmon and Chibimon both hopped over to me and I picked them up in my arms.

"Nope, sorry, I still owe ya Ken and I always repay my depts., OK?" Cody asked.

Ken just chuckled.

"Whatever you want" he relented.

"Come on, Cody. Don't be like that and besides, if anyone owes anything, Dai owes me." Yolei said as she fluttered her eyes at me.

"All right, you can come over for dinner." I sighed making her cheer as I grinned at her.

"Still, I think Cody saved Ken for a very different reason. What do you think, Chibomon?" I asked looking down at my boy.

"You may be right, but I think Cody's just embarrassed." He said as we both smiled.

"Well, you're probably right." Yolei said as she crossed her arms.

To be continued…


End file.
